PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The 76ers\u2019 plan for this week\u2019s back-to-back had been to stagger off days of Joel Embiid and Paul George.<\/p>\n
Embiid played 33:18 with 30 points in a 113-104 win over Indiana on Monday night with George sitting out. George, though, failed a pregame fitness test and was ruled out Tuesday with left knee injury management.<\/p>\n
Tuesday was the first time since Jan. 11 and just the second in the last 14 games that the 76ers played with neither Embiid nor George. Embiid\u2019s absence was formally right ankle injury management, with no mention of either of his knees.<\/p>\n
Andre Drummond, who had fallen behind Adem Bona as the backup to Embiid, started for the 16th time this season.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s win over Indiana was the best offensive performance from Kelly Oubre since his return from a 22-game absence with a knee sprain.<\/p>\n
Oubre logged 35 minutes, with 18 points on 8-for-14 shooting and five assists. That is his most minutes and most points since the return.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe got downhill two or three times to start the game,\u201d Coach Nick Nurse said Monday. \u201cI think that\u2019s always a good sign for him. I think it was his best overall game \u2014 forget the scoring, even though it is always needed and nice \u2014 but it just felt like he looked a lot more comfortable at both ends, in sets, execution, all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oubre, starting for George, got to the basket for the first two points Tuesday night against the Suns, if Nurse was looking for omens. It\u2019s the second start of his return.<\/p>\n
Before Monday, he had averaged 25.2 minutes, 6.8 points and 4.2 rebounds in six games since his return as he found his feet. He had been shooting 31.6 percent from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
Oubre had averaged 16.8 points in 34.9 minutes in his first 12 games of the season pre-injury.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a struggle of late for Quentin Grimes.<\/p>\n
Over his last 15 games, the guard is shooting just 32.4 percent from 3-point range, averaging 10.0 points in 28.1 minutes per game. He\u2019s failed to get out of double figures in seven of those games, including four of the last six.<\/p>\n
Though Nurse has consistently used him in the five-man lineups to close games, he wasn\u2019t among that unit Monday, a night where he shot 1-for-7 for five points.<\/p>\n
Nurse\u2019s solution seems somewhat counterintuitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that we really thought he was a much better player off the bench, that he liked to see the game a little bit and come in and play,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cAnd I think that we\u2019re having some discussions lately of maybe that\u2019s not the case, and maybe we start sticking him back in the starting lineup a little bit to see if that helps him as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much like Nurse\u2019s assessment of Oubre and of VJ Edgecombe, one of the keys for Grimes is to get to the basket more, creating via his ability to get into the paint.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really need him to attack the rim more,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cHe\u2019s good at it in the open floor, and just a little bit more decisive when he\u2019s coming up the floor to make a play in the paint. And then to pull the 3 balls, make sure he has the confidence to continue to take those, that the light is green and getting greener.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Johni Broome was recalled from the G League, where he\u2019s been producing.<\/p>\n
In 13 games, he\u2019s averaging 33.2 minutes, 22.8 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game while shooting 48 percent from the field. He\u2019s shooting 31 percent on 5.5 3-point attempts per game.<\/p>\n
That includes going off for 50 points in 38 minutes on Friday, shooting 18-for-34 with 17 rebounds and five assists in a defense-allergic 155-140 win over College Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had some really good games,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cObviously, (he) had a really big game. I think he\u2019s playing pretty confidently down there, which is important. He\u2019s really doing a good job finishing and scoring at the basket. He\u2019s making a decent amount of 3s. His rebounding has been pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nurse added that there\u2019s not much in the way of minutes available at the center spot at the moment.<\/p>\n
The second-round pick has looked occasionally lost in his early stints with the big club, playing seven games for 40 minutes in the NBA, shooting 4-for-20 from the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The 76ers\u2019 plan for this week\u2019s back-to-back had been to stagger off days of Joel Embiid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,113,126,3866,6,114,207,66,7464],"class_list":{"0":"post-550990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-indiana","10":"tag-indiana-pacers","11":"tag-indianapacers","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-pacers","14":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115933222442764540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}