March 28, 2026, 2:03 p.m. ET
The Philadelphia 76ers will continue with their season as they look to climb into the top 6 and lock down a guaranteed playoff spot. With nine games left, they are getting healthy at the right time and feel confident about what they can do out on the floor at this stage of the season.
As the Sixers begin the final stretch, they will take on the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday in a hugely important game. They are just a game up on the Hornets in the standings and the winner of this contest will earn the tiebreaker for the season.
The Sixers are getting healthy as they welcomed Joel Embiid and Paul George back to the floor in Wednesday’s win over the Chicago Bulls. Embiid had 35 points and George had 28 as it feels as if there is a new sense of excitment about this team.
“I mean, I think it excites the city,” Kelly Oubre Jr. told reporters. “It excites everybody in the organization, because this is the team that they put together, and we can finally go out there and show what we can do and find that rhythm and that groove in the right time of the season, right?”
The return of Embiid and George will give the Sixers a big boost the rest of the way. The rest of the team deserves credit for keeping the team afloat, though. Guys like Justin Edwards, VJ Edgecombe, Adem Bona, Andre Drummond, and others stepped up in a big way to help.
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“I think hats off to everybody that contributed this year, but we did a good job, obviously, one making sure this was better than last year,” Oubre added. “That this wasn’t an abysmal season, and now we can only just continue to just climb up and get better from here, but we got to remember where we started. I think last year is where we started, and we can only go up from there.”
Oubre will look to join Embiid and George back on the floor on Saturday when they take on the Hornets. This is a hugely important matchup, but the 11-year veteran out of Kansas doesn’t want to put too much pressure on the Sixers.
“Yeah, but you can’t put too much pressure on it to where you psych yourself out and just kind of aren’t—you’re overly prepared and stuff like that,” Oubre finished. “For me, I’m just trying to stay even keeled. That’s me personally, but as a team, we’re practicing hard. We’re having hard shootarounds. So you can kind of tell is getting to that, you know, that playoff time and that playoff push, but I think we’re all locked in. I’m excited just to get back out there and just bring, bring the crazy and just keep it pushing.”