PHILADELPHIA — As the Philadelphia 76ers get set to take on the Indiana Pacers on Friday night after having four days off, they will have to do so without the services of their star leader, Tyrese Maxey.

After initially being listed as probable to play against the Pacers due to an illness, he was then downgraded to questionable on Friday morning before being downgraded to out. Without Maxey on the floor, the Sixers will have to find a way to get the ball across half-court and find a way to make things work against a fast Pacers team.

“Obviously, that’s a huge challenge,” coach Nick Nurse said before the contest. “Lots of minutes. Lots of ball-handling. Lots of scoring against a team that likes to pressure a lot. They like to play a lot of guards, so I think that the handling the ball responsibility has got to be spread out between the rest of those guys. It’ll be a good challenge for them.”

This is probably not something Nurse ever expects on a nightly basis in terms of Maxey. This will be the first game he has missed all season as he has been an iron man for this group as he has played every game and carried a heavy workload for this group.

However, the Sixers did get some reps without the star guard throughout the week.

“Not a lot. That’s for sure,” Nurse said of thinking about game planning without Maxey. “I don’t like to put myself in that mindset very often, but we did have all week. He’s been not a part of what we’re doing all week, so at least we got some reps this week.”

Without Maxey on the floor, it does open the door for Jared McCain to get an uptick in minutes and have a chance to make a serious impact out on the floor.

“Listen, I think that like I said, he’s still kinda working his way back into everything,” Nurse said of McCain. “I just think physically, mentally, it was an 11-month break. It is a great opportunity to get him minutes. I think this is probably an opportunity where he’ll get a play through some things no matter what happens. He’ll need to be out there a lot. So, hopefully, that also gives him some confidence to just kinda play. He’s usually pretty good about playing through anything that’s going good or bad and just kinda hoopin’.”

The Sixers will take on the Pacers at 7 p.m. EST from the Xfinity Mobile Arena.