Philadelphia 76ers Postgame Media Availability 🎙️ | Coach Nurse | 11.11.25

Nick, what went into the decision to bring Justin back into the rotation and how good did it feel to see him erupt in that way and swing that game in your favor? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, he he played, you know, pretty solid in his first rotation in the first half. Um, they were fairly smallish. Um, we used Walker a little bit there on Brown in the first half. Thought it bought some good minutes. We tried to buy a couple more minutes with him there. Um they were just doing a pretty good job of screening everybody all of our primary defenders off of getting him getting him the ball. Um just again went back to Justin as a part of the rotation really and obviously when you get going we just leave leave you going. So he hit some big ones got us got us back in the game that’s for sure. Got a two-part question, coach. Again, what key the late run you guys had and the ability of this team to kind of stay with it and stay with it. You’ve done this so far very well times this year and get back in. I mean I mean I I don’t know. I think I think that I don’t know how much data we have to have, but I just kind of think this is going to be what it’s like first of all, right? Up 10, down 10, see at the end, right? I I just think that’s nine games, 11 games and nine of them have ended at the at the horn, right? That’s that’s pretty pretty amazing really. Right. Um again, I think that um we go through some ups and downs moments. I mean, you guys are watching the games. There’s some times when the when the break’s there and we’re finding people and we’re hitting the paint. Uh there’s some times when it gets stagnant. Uh, I thought what got us going tonight is we finally got to some organization and executed a few things and they were taking away the kind of primary option, but we were just kicking it out to the open man, but it was off some execution and some organization and I think that got us got us going there and when when we needed it. Obviously, Kelly had had the big foot back. Uh, just what did you just kind of make make up of his overall night and just him kind of being in the right spot, right time coming up with a big one there? Yeah, I mean obviously he didn’t play much in the first half because of foul trouble. Um but he you know again he’s kind of I I would say that in the guts of that game he he got Brown. I mean we were in a stretch we were doing a really good job on him in the first half and Kelly was we were kind of just trying to sub Kelly with him the whole time to make sure we had a primary guy to just lock in on him and he got in foul trouble so we got away from that just a bit. Um, and then he, you know, again, he was he was out there primarily to guard him. And I think that’s that’s, you know, he did a decent job. Uh, he works at it. He makes, you know, the catches tough. He’s swatting at the ball. And I mean, Brown’s really good. We had to do a lot of, we had to do a lot of stuff to try to stop him there. And, um, they would, you know, we’d counter with something. They’d counter back and hit a deep three on us when we would rotate or something to put two on him. And so it was kind of that chess match going on, but I just think Kelly did the work, right? He just accepted the challenge and did the work and and and did a good job with that. How big was that high hedge by by Andre on the last possession that created the deflection and kind of created the chaos of that last offensive possession? Yeah, it was huge. It was huge. And those are those are just, you know, making plays. Drums drums can got got some quick hands every now and then, but obviously it was a it was a saving play for that possession for sure. Yeah. If Jordan Walsh uh did a job against Tyreek Slate in this game, I guess when you have a match up like that where there’s just so much length on him, what you sort of want him to do in terms of low hanging to get kind of find. Yeah. So, we we were um I don’t know how much of this I should give away, but um I mean, we he was doing a good job, but eventually in the possession, he was trying to force him a certain direction. So, we were trying to flip the angles of the screens a little bit to give Tyrese some type of driving lane where the big was he wasn’t staring right at the big. And Drum was doing a pretty decent job of that. I mean, Tyrese did get down the paint. They were, you know, there were length and they were pulling in. Um, you know, he had to he had to make some shots over some pretty pretty long guys there for a couple times or get them up anyway. But again, I thought he made um a couple great kickouts, right? Really right when we needed them. He he and he was he was feeling those kickouts. He was asking for certain guys to be certain places because he knew he thought they’d be open. So, he was doing a good job of reading that stuff. Yeah. Obviously, you were able to recover and pick up the win, but I mean the third quarter issues kind of, you know, popped up again. Is there something maybe you can identify and maybe maybe just try to figure it out from there? I don’t know. Right now, I’m going to say I’d rather be a better fourth quarter team than third quarter team because our fourth quarters are pretty damn good, right, but I’ll keep working on it. We’ll keep working on we we did think about changing the lineup. I think I think just switching something in the lineup is is something I’ve used in the past, right? It went through a long almost second half of the whole season starting one group and starting another group in the second half because we kind of had this similar thing. I don’t know, maybe we’ll just do halftime down on the bench instead of coming up to the locker room. I know that’s something else we could try. I don’t know. I’m sorry to go away from the game for a second, but you said earlier there was going to be imaging done on both guys. Uh we got an update on Paul George earlier. Uh is there any update on Joel and sort of where do where do you stand now with PG with a couple days of practice? you expect him to do stuff? Yeah. Um, let me I’ll answer the Joel part first. Um, Joel Joelle has no structural issues and he’s dayto-day. Um, and what was the Paul question? Both guys, I guess for both guys, is there with a couple days I assume at practice or at least one Friday, is there any plan for participation in that kind of stuff or is it just a wait and see deal? Um I mean I wouldn’t rule anything out. You know neither one of them have been ruled out and it is a wait and see from there. Yep. Joel’s having no structural issues considering that he’s had so many injury problems. How much is that a big s relief because you you’ve had you’ve had him for games this year and he’s played pretty well recently. How much is that a you know? It is certainly. Um, I’m probably I think I think what I’m more concerned of is I think he’s trending upwards, right? I think the conditioning and the minutes and all the things are going to trend up to to playing even better, right? So, I think it’s really important that we get to hopefully get him out there soon. Look at this team last year to this year. You’re not dealing with absences quite at the same level, but still to a good degree. Just what have you made of the team’s depth and resiliency so far? Yeah, I mean, uh, you’re right. It’s it’s still we still we still are going into these games with three or four rotational guys out, right? I think last year we were getting mostly six and seven rotational guys out. Um but this I mean it’s a different team for sure and the fact that we’ve got some youth and speed and we’re able we’re able to go out there and scrap, you know, with some with some intensity and play hard and all that kind of stuff and give ourselves a chance. I mean, that’s that’s all, you know, I keep saying. I just I just want to somehow find a way to give ourselves a chance and we’ve been doing that for, you know, I guess 10 of the 11 games. DJ’s athleticism and ability to make big plays these last couple games in the fourth. Would you have known when you met him like just the mental approach he would have because he’s made big plays? Yeah. Yeah, he he has made big plays. I think that again he’s he’s pretty pretty fearless out there, right? He’s pretty got great composure. He’s calm. Like he’s not he’s not like he doesn’t make too many mistakes, you know? He’s, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, like I super believe in him, which is why I leave him out there in in the fourth quarter of a close game. Like he he needs to he needs to be out there and learn this stuff. And he’s he’s produced and and again, he’s he’s one of our better defenders for sure. So again, he’s going to need to be out there late in games to to try to make a play there, too. You guys have had a pretty jammed up schedule car through back to back some of the games. Is it nice to have five stretch of one game to kind of get not only these these other guys healthy, but to get good on you as a group? Yeah. The hard the Yeah. So, a couple good things because we got two days in a game and two days in a game is we got a whole group of guys that need to get on the court. It’s hard to get on the court when you’re playing and traveling, playing and traveling, right? There’s a group of guys that need to get out there and get up and down and then there’s a there’s another group of probably four guys that need to stay stay away from the court, right? And and get their legs back underneath them. Justin for a second just and I know the stay ready mantra is like always what guys that are sort of on fring uh always talk about, but like how do you sort of preach and like encourage that like daytoday so that somebody is ready to to step in? I mean, I think I’ve said this to you guys before, like, I love him. I don’t worry about him, right? Works extremely hard. He’s really worked on his shooting. He goes out there and tries as hard as he can on defense every time. He’s not perfect, but he’s a really good developing young player that I love. I’m not, you know, when he has a bad game, it doesn’t even phase me because I love him. Yep. All right. Thanks, everybody.

Coach Nurse speaks to the media following a win over the Boston Celtics.

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