PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers were able to knock off the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday night 121-114 as they improved to 16-11 on the season with two wins on in a row on another back-to-back set. They were able to pick up another win with Joel Embiid and Paul George sidelined as they have found a formula that works.

With that being said, one has to wonder if there is any concern right now with Embiid. He has missed two straight games now with the illness and what the team designated as right knee injury management. One has to wonder if coach Nick Nurse is worried about his superstar big man at this stage.

“We went into last night (Friday in New York) with both those things, and he just didn’t have a great week over the illness and with a little bit of soreness in the right knee,” Nurse said after the win over the Mavs. “Fortunately, we could get through the week, and we got another couple days and hopefully get him going.”

It has been extremely unfortunate for Embiid who has had a tough time staying on the floor since winning the MVP award in 2023. He only played 39 games in the 2023-24 season, 19 in the 2024-25 season, and has played only 11 of the team’s 27 thus far in 2025-26.

“The first 39, I think, was my first year here,” Nurse added. “He was playing at that incredible pace. I would say as good, or slightly better than the MVP season, and then he had a serious injury, and that was a that was a serious injury, and just hasn’t, hasn’t quite been able to get back.”

Nurse is correct about Embiid playing at an incredible pace. He was on his way to winning the MVP award again in 2024, but was unable to get on the floor much after that insane start. The coach feels empathetic towards the big fella as he and the rest of the team moves forward.

“Absolutely,” Nurse finished. “I thought we were going this way (he pointed upward) for a bit here, right? And I think we got to try to keep going that way. I would imagine with another—and this has been a little bit of a break time off. We have to start climbing back up again a little bit, but we’d just really like to get him out there as much as we can, for sure.”

The Sixers will have two days off before hosting the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday.