Sixers’ Joel Embiid, Paul George will sit out against the Cavaliers for knee injury management

The 76ers’ uphill battle just turned into a climb up Mount Everest.

Already undermanned, the Sixers have added perennial All-Stars Joel Embiid and Paul George and reserve center Andre Drummond to the list of players who will not be available to face the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night. For their part, the Sixers have the Eastern Conference’s second-worst record at 2-8 despite being favored to contend for an NBA title.

All-Star point guard Tyrese Maxey, who is sidelined with a strained right hamstring, was already scheduled to miss the game at the Wells Fargo Center. He will be reevaluated in the coming days, but is expected to miss another week.

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Drummond will miss the game because of an illness.

Embiid and George, however, are out as part of the plan to manage their recovery from left knee injuries. Coach Nick Nurse said the duo will both play in Friday’s game against the Orlando Magic at the Kia Center.

“Now we’re at the situation where Paul’s minutes restrictions are over,” Nurse said, “and we’ll just see where we’re at with Joel minutes restriction-wise going forward.”

The 7-foot-2 center made his season debut Tuesday in a 111-99 loss to the New York Knicks at the Wells Fargo Center. Embiid was noticeably rusty, out of game shape, and timid in his first game since winning a gold medal with Team USA in the Paris Olympics on Aug. 11. He finished with 13 points, three rebounds, five assists, one block and two turnovers while playing just 26 minutes, 25 seconds due to a minutes restriction.

Embiid’s being sidelined against the Cavs (12-0) should not come as a surprise. The 2023 league MVP said during training camp that he wouldn’t play in both games scheduled on back-to-back nights. However, he tried to walk that statement back after Tuesday’s loss, saying he wanted to play against Cleveland.

Like Embiid, George was not expected to play Wednesday as part of the Sixers’ load management plan to keep them healthy for the postseason. The forward is coming off his best game of the season, producing season highs of 29 points and 10 rebounds along with three assists, three steals, and a block against the Knicks. That was George‘s fifth game back after he missed the first five games after hyperextending his left knee in the preseason, causing a bone bruise.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid says ‘we’ll be fine’ once Sixers get their star trio on the court together amid a slow start

But he’s not the only member of the Big Three who has missed significant time. Embiid missed the entire preseason and the first nine games. He sat out six contests for what the team called left knee injury management and served a three-game suspension for shoving Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes in the Sixers’ locker room on Nov. 2.

Wednesday will mark the fourth game Maxey misses after he suffered a hamstring injury against the Los Angeles Clippers on Nov. 6.