Nick Nurse channels training camp in effort to nip ‘foundational’ cracks from Sixers’ recent skid

Nick Nurse promised that Monday’s 76ers practice would be “physical.”

At its conclusion, Nurse compared it to a training-camp session “in length and competition,” including full-contact, five-on-five scrimmaging.

Throughout the 82-game regular-season grind, coaches and players must balance not overreacting to small bumps while also swiftly fixing slippage before it spirals. Following home losses on back-to-back nights to the New York Knicks and Utah Jazz, Nurse decided that his team needed the jolt.

“Our foundational stuff has gotten rocked here a little bit,” the coach said. “We’ve got to get that foundation solidified. That’s basic stuff: getting back and guarding the ball and challenging shots.”

This was no surprise to reserve wing KJ Martin, who said Monday that “after we lost two in a row, I figured he wanted to pick the intensity up.”

The Sixers (23-12) also took a positive step toward returning to health, as Nurse said starters Tobias Harris (ankle) and De’Anthony Melton (back) and reserve Furkan Korkmaz (illness) all participated after missing Saturday’s loss to Utah.

Reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid and reserve wing Robert Covington, meanwhile, did not practice Monday, though there is optimism that at least Embiid could return to the court for Tuesday’s session ahead of Wednesday’s game at the Atlanta Hawks.

Like Saturday, Nurse was more terse and direct while discussing his team’s recent woes.

He referenced those defensive priorities multiple times, after a unit that entered Monday ranked third in the NBA in efficiency (110.7 points allowed per 100 possessions) had surrendered 72 points in the paint (without Embiid’s rim protection) to the Jazz and let the Knicks shoot 18-of-41 from three-point range and amass 33 fast-break points.

Those foundational cracks, Nurse said, are a reason the coaching staff has not been able to progress beyond the estimated 60% of schemes that have been installed.

» READ MORE: Nick Nurse takes no-excuses approach to recent blowout losses: ‘I just don’t accept the effort’

And on the opposite end of the floor, Nurse pushed back slightly when asked about star guard Tyrese Maxey, acknowledging that he struggled with the variety of defenses the Jazz threw at him on Saturday night.

“Overall, I didn’t think that shot creation or [Maxey’s] touches or shots we got or anything were the problem,” Nurse said. “I think overall, as a team, we handled it just fine.”

Through this season’s 35 games, the Sixers have not lost more than two in a row, and their longest losing streak last season was three games. So the emphasis on quickly squashing mini slides is still a bit new for a younger player such as Martin, who spent the first three seasons of his career with a Houston Rockets team in the depths of a rebuild.

“That’s what they expect,” Martin said. “The stuff we don’t do well, the next practice we’re going to work on it and correct those things. Because when you’re a top team in the NBA fighting to get to the championship, you want to [limit mistakes] as much as possible.”

The Sixers’ chance to reverse this shorthanded, two-game stumble arrives Wednesday in Atlanta. It’s unclear whether the practice that Nurse directs Tuesday will also look more like training camp than early January.

But the intensity of Monday’s session was deliberate.

“The easy way out is to say, ‘Oh, we’re beat up and we don’t have enough people’ and all that kind of stuff,” Nurse said. “But I can’t accept that as the coach. There is a way we want to play, regardless of who’s out there, and that’s what I’ve got to make sure to nip.”