After Joel Embiid’s successful return, Sixers aim to utilize schedule’s light stretch
The Sixers play only two games before Dec. 20, and can perhaps finally begin taking legitimate steps to becoming the team they envisioned before its injury-riddled 7-15 start.
CHICAGO — Joel Embiid’s cold shooting start Sunday made coach Nick Nurse question how the star big man’s first game in more than two weeks would unfold.
Then as the Embiid two-man game with point guard Tyrese Maxey began to cook in the second quarter, new All-Star teammate Paul George called it “as good as it gets right there.”
The 2023 NBA Most Valuable Player rebounded from an 0-for-7 start to finish the 76ers’ 108-100 victory over the Chicago Bulls with 31 points in 33 minutes, along with 12 rebounds and four assists. And his successful return now leads into a well-timed light part of the schedule, when the Sixers play only two games before Dec. 20 and can perhaps finally begin taking legitimate steps to becoming the team they envisioned before an injury-riddled 7-15 start.
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“This is the best thing that’s happened to us,” Maxey said of the scheduling quirk. “Kind of everybody coming back healthy at the right time. He got a game under his belt. A lot of these guys haven’t played with Jo in real stretches. …
“It’s hard to learn how to play with a guy like that on the fly. So I think that’s going to be a really good stretch for us, just to get everybody acclimated.”
Sunday’s performance was a delayed build on Embiid’s Nov. 20 game at the Memphis Grizzlies, when he and Maxey leaned into their dynamic partnership from the previous season. After totaling 10 of his career-high 14 assists to Embiid on Sunday, Maxey reiterated how much “easier” it is to share the court with the big man because defenses cannot trap ball screens and he can make simple decisions based on coverages.
Nurse added he liked the variety of ways Embiid scored, mixing in some rolls to the basket and post-ups in addition to his near-automatic free-throw jumper. The only blemish the coach noted? That Embiid went 0-for-5 from three-point range.
“Any time you get him in the middle of the floor,” George added about Embiid, “everybody’s at his mercy.”
Embiid, however, did not offer much insight during an odd postgame media session that took place nearly 90 minutes after the final buzzer. When asked about that second quarter, Embiid said, “I got lucky.” When asked about the keys to getting his body in a place to play again, he said, “Trust the process.” When asked what he is discovering about playing alongside George, he said, “Just got to get him going.”
“I’ve got to give short answers,” Embiid added. “Because when I give long answers, they [the media] try to twist my words.”
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The next step is more consistently weaving in George, who was coming off two terrific performances earlier in the week, but entering Sunday had played only six minutes alongside Embiid and Maxey. George scored six of his 12 points Sunday in the first quarter, when Embiid and Maxey struggled to find their shots. As the game progressed, George said, he noticed the workload for Embiid and Maxey “wearing those guys out” as the Bulls cut into a 19-point gap to create a relatively tight finish.
“So then, now how do we break that up to where those guys can get rest?” George said. “Now I can come in and give them a little [breather]. Finding ways and schemes that we can keep everyone fresh while still getting quality offensive possessions.”
As a charter plane issue forced the Sixers to linger inside the postgame visitors’ locker room Sunday, Embiid eventually emerged because he had gotten a whiff of trays of wings from Chicago’s famous Harold’s Chicken. As he grabbed one, Embiid joked that he should not eat the snack because he still needed to get back in shape.
After all, the big man had just logged 33 minutes, a number Nurse was comfortable with because of the Sixers’ upcoming four-day break between games. But how Embiid’s knee responds to the on-court action will be a “big data point for us,” Nurse said, to determine how to manage the center’s knee moving forward.
Embiid and the Sixers will get Monday to rest before beginning a stretch of practices that Nurse called a second training camp. A few minutes after Maxey called the timing “the best thing that’s happened to us,” teammate Kelly Oubre Jr. responded to the topic by raising his arms as if he were worshipping the basketball gods.
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And count Embiid among those eager to utilize that extra time.
“We were mostly on the same page [Sunday], but we’ve still got a long way to go,” he said. “This week will be a lot about just really keep learning how to play with each other. … We got a lot of the shots we wanted [Sunday]. It was all about us just making it or missing it.
“Keep focusing on the details, and go from there.”