PHILADELPHIA \u2014 On the order of problems to have as a basketball team, the one the 76ers faced Wednesday night is one they would\u2019ve signed for at the beginning of the season.<\/p>\n
Nothing went right in a 138-89 loss to the New York Knicks, a season-low point total ending the first half of the season with an absolute dud. If there was a silver lining to divine from the blue-and-orange masses that took over the Xfinity Mobile Arena, it was from who wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
The 76ers struggled without Joel Embiid, which served to underscore both how often the one-time NBA MVP has been in the lineup lately and how influential the center has been when active.<\/p>\n
Embiid has been so present and so elite when present that the 76ers have allowed to wane the ability to win without him. It\u2019s both a discouraging sign given the long haul of an NBA season and encouragement of just how good Embiid has been.<\/p>\n
Embiid missed Wednesday\u2019s game with right knee soreness, his second straight game out. It\u2019s the first time he\u2019s missed consecutive games since Dec. 19-20.<\/p>\n
From Dec. 23 to Saturday in Phoenix, Embiid played in 20 of 25 games. He averaged 34.1 minutes and 30 points per game, enough to inspire not just the return of Embiid\u2019s swagger but legitimate conversations about his potential as an All-Star addition.<\/p>\n
But the flipside is that the 76ers went 1-4 in the five games without him, blown out in Oklahoma City and Charlotte. Add these last two games in Portland and Wednesday that quickly turned into garbage time, and that\u2019s six losses in seven games without Embiid.<\/p>\n
For the season, the 76ers are 19-12 with Embiid. Without him, they\u2019re 11-12. They had been 10-6 through Dec. 20 without him, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s weird, man, because you\u2019ve got to play multiple different ways,\u201d All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey said. \u201cA lot of times, he sits out on back-to-backs, so it\u2019s hard. You go from playing one way with him or without him early in the season, he comes back, you\u2019ve got to play a different way when he\u2019s there, which is OK. It\u2019s the reality of it, and we\u2019ll be alright.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019ll be here more than he isn\u2019t here when we get back. But you\u2019ve got to maintain. Those games that he\u2019s not there \u2014 and Paul (George) probably won\u2019t be there until the end \u2014 so we\u2019ve got to just maintain.\u201d<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t on Embiid. The recent change owes as much to the disruption brought by the suspension of Paul George for 25 games for a violation of the NBA\u2019s drug policy. The 76ers weathered that first game without either George or Embiid post-suspension in Golden State on Feb. 3, but the depth has looked lacking in the two losses that send them into the break.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s loss to the Knicks was a start-to-finish capitulation that opened with a 16-4 Knicks run and scarcely got better.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything,\u201d coach Nick Nurse said of what went wrong. \u201cThat\u2019s really disappointing. Obviously we had zero readiness and energy, physically or mentally, just kind of got to the half and the game pretty much had been settled by then.\u201d<\/p>\n
In isolation, there are mitigating factors for each result. Charlotte included travel craziness during a winter storm. Portland involved missing Embiid plus illness absences for Dominick Barlow and Quentin Grimes, the latter of whom missed the Knicks game.<\/p>\n
That the front office summarily failed to reinforce the team at the trade deadline \u2014 actively making it worse by trading away Jared McCain for picks while reinforcing neither the George-shaped hole on the wing nor upgrading the reserve center spot behind Embiid \u2014 wasn\u2019t worth 50 points against the Knicks or even 17 against Portland. But it sure isn\u2019t helping.<\/p>\n
Adem Bona and Andre Drummond, the latter of whom was dropped for the second half Wednesday in favor of the first and last minutes of Charles Bassey\u2019s 10-day contract, are looking a worse and worse fit for any extended stretch without Embiid. It\u2019s exacerbated without George\u2019s savvy to smooth the transition.<\/p>\n
The biggest change is the dependence on Embiid offensively, Nurse said. His offensive efficiency has been elite, which is great when he\u2019s out there. But it\u2019s also begat a lot of confusion when he\u2019s not. That quest is of a piece with the variety that Nurse exhorts his team for, with or without Embiid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime we\u2019re without Joel, I think offensively is where we\u2019ve got to make sure that lots of guys pitch in to cover all that that he creates,\u201d Nurse said pre-Knicks debacle. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest thing. I think we\u2019ll have some size in there for rebounding. \u2026 But I think just the offensive creation, it can\u2019t be one guy. It\u2019s got to be everybody that hits the floor is going to have to chip in somehow, offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The predicament demands context, just as Nurse, in his clear disappointment Wednesday, didn\u2019t want two games to overshadow a first half in which the 76ers exceeded most reasonable expectations.<\/p>\n
If Embiid, who the 76ers were unsure would ever return to an elite level given his injury past, is going to be so good that his absence again creates problems, that\u2019s a conundrum you invite without hesitation. It raises the ceiling for the 76ers in a seven-game playoff series for which, presumably, the version of Embiid that can play 20 of 25 games will not miss any of.<\/p>\n
But to navigate the 82-game gauntlet to get there, the 76ers have to be better without him. If it feels like a return to the square-one conversations at the start of last season, that may not be a bad thing.<\/p>\n
Contact Matthew De George at mdegeoge@delcotimes.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 On the order of problems to have as a basketball team, the one the 76ers faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,6,678,207,3817,66,7464],"class_list":{"0":"post-599645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","13":"tag-philadelphia76ers","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116059902588516674","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599645","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=599645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}