Joel Embiid is available for Sixers’ game at Oklahoma City Thunder; Danuel House Jr. ruled out with thigh bruise

OKLAHOMA CITY — Joel Embiid is available for Saturday’s 76ers game at the Thunder, while reserve wing Danuel House Jr. has been ruled out with a left quadriceps bruise.

After missing Wednesday’s loss at the Minnesota Timberwolves with left hip soreness, Embiid was a full participant in Friday’s practice in Oklahoma City. The coach added that the team session is when House took a knee to the thigh, and that the Sixers “tried to get him ready to go” for the game before ruling him out about 90 minutes before tipoff.

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Embiid, the reigning NBA MVP, had been dealing with the hip issue for more than a week. Wednesday in Minnesota, the Sixers (10-5) were on the second night of a back-to-back, after Embiid had played 41 minutes in an overtime loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers the night prior.

Embiid entered Saturday leading the league in scoring (31.9 points per game) while also averaging 11.3 rebounds, a career-high 6.1 assists, and 1.8 blocks. House is averaging 3.8 points on 41.9% shooting and 1.4 rebounds over 10 games while sliding in and out of the rotation.

The Sixers are in a tough stretch of the schedule, with a back-to-back in consecutive weeks while facing quality opponents such as the Indiana Pacers (twice), Boston Celtics, Timberwolves, and Thunder.

That’s a reason Nurse said Friday that he wants to be careful not to “over-scrutinize” areas that were strong at the start of the season but have slid in recent games. Still, he is prioritizing practice time, holding Friday evening’s session following a long flight from Philadelphia to Oklahoma City.

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The coach hopes the work as a team is beneficial for the new players who arrived in the James Harden trade less than a month ago. It also is a way for the staff to emphasize foundational defensive principles. That includes schematic and game-plan specifics, but also basics such as communication, physicality, getting back in transition, contesting shots, and blocking out for rebounds.

Over their last seven games, the Sixers ranked 20th in the NBA in defensive efficiency at 117.4 points allowed per 100 possessions.

“As any teacher or coach knows,” Nurse said, “just because you have taught it once and they’ve done it a few times, sometimes there’s some slippage or regression, and you have to teach the exact same thing over and over and over and over again. And that’s what we need to do.

“I think we’ve had some good defensive performances, but we’re not anywhere near where I want us to be. That probably doesn’t happen until after the new year, but we’ve got to stay at it and keep coaching them.”

That is an end of the floor where the Sixers miss the injured Kelly Oubre Jr., who was able to pressure the ball and use his athleticism too cover up schematic mistakes made by him and others. But Nurse refused to use Oubre’s absence as an excuse.

“Everybody goes through this,” Nurse said. “Everybody’s got guys in and out all the time, and we’ve got to figure out how to plug the things we’re missing.”

Nurse was asked before Wednesday’s game in Minnesota about assistant coach Bryan Gates, who previously was on the Timberwolves’ staff from 2015 to 2016 and from 2019 to 2021.

Yet Nurse’s and Gates’ relationship actually can be traced back to the Oklahoma Storm, a team from the now-defunct United States Basketball League that was located in Enid, Okla., about 75 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. Gates was the Storm’s head coach from 2001 to 2004, and hired Nurse to be an assistant for the 2001 season after initially becoming friends while hanging around the Summer Pro League in Long Beach (a precursor to Las Vegas Summer League) while Nurse was coaching in England.

Their paths diverged after that, though both worked their way from the G League into the NBA. Gates had been Phoenix Suns assistant the previous two seasons, before then-head coach Monty Williams was fired and Gates became available to join Nurse’s first Sixers staff. Gates is responsible for crafting and game-planning the Sixers’ defense.

“He’s got kind of a ‘love every day’ personality,” Nurse said of Gates. “He really brings a lot of optimism, a lot of energy, a lot of humor, those kinds of things, to each and every day. He’s been awesome.

“He was really good 20 years ago when I was working for him. But in the time we’ve been away, he’s really gotten good. I’ve been lucky to pick him up this time around.”