The Dallas Mavericks (12-22) host the Philadelphia 76ers (17-14) Thursday evening in a match up on New Years Day. The Mavericks are coming off a few days of rest following an annoying loss to the Blazers in Portland where they got down huge early and couldn\u2019t claw all the way back in. The Sixers played a wild game on Tuesday against the Memphis Grizzlies where they pulled it out in overtime.<\/p>\n
Heres the main things you need to know before tipoff.<\/p>\n
The Mavericks have a fairly clean injury report for them. The usual three are out: Dereck Lively, Kyrie Irving, Dante Exum. Joining them today for certain is D\u2019Angelo Russell, who is out with an illness. Anthony Davis is not showing up on the report at all. On the Sixer side of things, Kelly Oubre is out as is Trendon Watford. Joel Embiid is listed as probable, a bit of a surprise to me.<\/p>\n
The Sixers are slight favorites according to the betting odds, but its so close that it\u2019s a tossup. I think the Mavericks win this one easily and that\u2019s because Embiid is playing. He\u2019s a defensive traffic cone these days and offensively, he needs the ball a lot, taking away from the guy who killed Dallas last time in Tyrese Maxey. But maybe I\u2019m wrong, that\u2019s why they play the game. Dallas is simply too healthy (relatively, for them) to be bad this many games in a row. I think they\u2019ll pull something aburd out and win.<\/p>\n