PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The 76ers\u2019 blowout loss to the San Antonio Spurs went from bad to worse in the second quarter Tuesday night when VJ Edgecombe hit the deck hard.<\/p>\n
Edgecombe suffered a lumbar contusion, the team said Wednesday, ruling him out for a visit from the Utah Jazz.<\/p>\n
Coach Nick Nurse is optimistic it will be a short-term absence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the imaging came back good, clean,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cI did talk to him, he said he was fine. But he\u2019ll get reevaluated here in the next couple of days and see where he\u2019s at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edgecombe got fouled from behind by Carter Bryant on a 3-point attempt with two-tenths of a second left in the first half of a 131-91 beatdown by the Spurs. The rookie guard landed hard on his back. He stayed in to make two of three free throws but was ruled out for the game at halftime, a wise decision given the 25-point deficit.<\/p>\n
His absence Wednesday leaves the 76ers down essentially four starters. Joel Embid is out for a third straight game with a right oblique strain. Kelly Oubre is out for the second straight night due to illness. Paul George remains suspended.<\/p>\n
The Jazz enter on a six-game losing streak and are 14th in the Western Conference. But it will still be a challenge given the 76ers\u2019 staffing issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve obviously got to shuffle the lineup quite a bit,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cThere\u2019s some guys that we like coming off the bench, but missing the number of starters we are, we\u2019re going to have to push those guys up and then kind of push the next-line guys up, play some guys that we\u2019re still trying to get to know a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
The positives from Tuesday\u2019s night\u2019s bludgeoning can be counted on one hand.<\/p>\n
Jabari Walker scored 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting, his highest offensive output in a 76ers jersey. He logged 19 minutes, his most in more than a month, since before the trade-deadline mismanagement by ownership in which he had to be inactive for a week to save money while they waited to convert this two-way contract to a standard deal.<\/p>\n
Walker, while undersized at 6-7, is good defensively and on the boards. The 76ers have had their heads stuffed in the metaphorical toilet on rebounding margin the last two games: 59-37 by the Celtics, 56-40 by the Spurs.<\/p>\n
Walker offered a reminder to a coaching staff that has apparently forgotten that he might be useful in stopping that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what\u2019s first is just showing the coach that you\u2019re playing for and showing a team that you could have impacted tonight,\u201d Walker said. \u201cJust put the pressure on them and make them rethink things and think, OK, maybe you could have impacted in some ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
The second quarter was an abject defensive failure, the Spurs shooting 17-for-23 (73.9 percent) from the field and 8-for-12 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
But \u2026 Cam Payne hit a pair of 3-pointers and had 10 points in 9:22 of the first half, an encouraging stint from the second-unit guard. It\u2019s just the second time he\u2019s hit multiple 3-pointers in his seven games with the 76ers. He\u2019s shooting 6-for-28 from 3-point range this season.<\/p>\n
Justin Edwards, who hadn\u2019t played since Feb. 24 and hadn\u2019t logged more than 10 minutes in a game since Feb. 11, hit both of his first-half 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
The 76ers have a cavalcade of problems at the moment, among them injuries, defense and rebounding. But in the absence of Embiid and the continued perimeter deficit from George\u2019s suspension, offensive production from Payne and Edwards will be vital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The 76ers\u2019 blowout loss to the San Antonio Spurs went from bad to worse in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,207,969,474,4075,4074,66,534,7464],"class_list":{"0":"post-639807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","11":"tag-san-antonio","12":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","13":"tag-sanantonio","14":"tag-sanantoniospurs","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-spurs","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116173568122759109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639807","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=639807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}