Joel Embiid’s MVP push, starting lineup among Sixers story lines to watch down NBA’s stretch run

The All-Star break is incorrectly billed as the NBA season’s midway point, given that the 76ers have only 25 regular-season games remaining before a crucial playoff run.

At 38-19 and in third place in the Eastern Conference standings, the Sixers are in a good spot entering Thursday’s return-to-play matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies. But is their improved roster enough to crack the Boston-Milwaukee hierarchy at the top of the conference? After initially being snubbed as an All-Star starter, can Joel Embiid make another run at the league’s Most Valuable Player award? And after injuries hampered the Sixers’ top three players (Embiid, James Harden, and Tyrese Maxey) during the season’s first four months, are those health issues behind them?

Here are five Sixers story lines to watch down the stretch of the regular season.

It was a big deal when Embiid won last season’s scoring title at 30.6 points per game, becoming the first center since Shaquille O’Neal in 2000 to lead the NBA in that category. He is averaging even more points this season (33.1), and currently sits two-tenths of a point behind the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic for the league’s lead.

Embiid is putting up those numbers on a career-best field-goal percentage (53.7) and while nearly matching his career best in assists (4.1 per game). That’s a product of his underrated basketball IQ and decision-making, which enhance his physical dominance and impressive skill set for his size and position. The Sixers have deliberately had Embiid operating more from the elbow and nail this season, where he can bait defenders who attempt to swarm with double teams.

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The Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic’s eye-popping numbers — combined with his team’s place atop the Western Conference standings — could put him in position to win his third consecutive MVP. And health, of course, is always a significant variable with Embiid. He has been managing a foot ailment for weeks, hinting that it could have kept him out of the All-Star Game before opting to play in Sunday’s showcase.

Though regular-season individual accolades add to Embiid’s growing resumé, the Sixers naturally are more concerned with his readiness for and throughout the playoffs. Last year, he tore a thumb ligament during the first-round series against the Toronto Raptors before sustaining an orbital fracture and concussion that kept him out of the first two games of their Eastern Conference semifinal loss to the Miami Heat.

It has been more than a month since Maxey moved into a sixth-man role, keeping De’Anthony Melton in the starting five as a backcourt defensive boost. Yet it’s fair to wonder if coach Doc Rivers will stick with that look for the remainder of the season.

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Maxey has flashed his dynamic bucket-getting ability in that role, but also acknowledged a recent funk. Melton, meanwhile, was a player Rivers identified as really needing the All-Star break. The first-year Sixer shouldered a lot more responsibility when Maxey and/or Harden were out with significant foot injuries — and always held the job of guarding the game’s top perimeter players. Melton also battled back issues off and on through the season’s first couple of months.

Who closes games for the Sixers is more important than who starts. Rivers has regularly gone with Maxey and Melton as part of a three-guard lineup, and also has other defense-first options that include P.J. Tucker or even new wing Jalen McDaniels.

The Sixers’ primary roster hole was the absence of a traditional 7-footer behind Embiid, until signing veteran Dewayne Dedmon off the buyout market last week. Dedmon was available but did not play in his first game with his new team last Wednesday against the Cleveland Cavaliers, so his ability to help remains an unknown.

Paul Reed, however, has been active since getting more minutes right before the break — including totaling five points on 2-of-2 shooting, four rebounds, and two blocks in nine minutes against Cleveland — and was part of last season’s playoff rotation. Montrezl Harrell averaged 5.7 points and 2.8 rebounds in 12.5 minutes per game as the backup for the biggest chunk of the season so far, before defensive struggles prompted Rivers to turn to Reed.

» READ MORE: Can Dewayne Dedmon solve the Sixers’ dilemma behind Joel Embiid?

The Sixers also have not experimented much with Tucker as a small-ball center option. Tucker perhaps deserves his own category in this exercise after a mostly disappointing first half of the season as their prime offseason addition. He has emerged a bit more offensively in recent games — he scored 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting against the Cavaliers — and put together a heck of a defensive effort while guarding Jokic in the Sixers’ marquee win over the Nuggets in late January.

The most daunting portion of the Sixers’ season is on the horizon.

Their first two games following the break are against the Grizzlies, who are in second place in the Western Conference standings, and the Celtics, who are atop the East and blasted the Sixers on Feb. 8 despite missing four starters for at least part of that game. Then, 12 of the Sixers’ 17 March games are on the road, with four back-to-backs (all away from home).

Rivers has already floated that managing player workload will be critical during that grueling stretch, particularly so close to the start of the playoffs. But the Sixers will need to at least tread water or they will be in danger of slipping to fourth (or lower) in the East.

Harden is coming off his first full All-Star break in more than a decade, after he was surprisingly left off the list of reserves despite leading the NBA in assists (10.8 per game) while adding 21.4 points and 6.2 rebounds with four triple-doubles.

» READ MORE: James Harden might be more lauded in history than now, even as other NBA stars follow his example

Gaudy numbers — though slightly transformed ones as a playmaker first with the Sixers — are nothing new for the future Hall of Famer. But Harden has repeated that he came to Philly to contend for a championship. That is one part of his legacy that can be strengthened after several perplexing playoff performances, especially in elimination games.

The Sixers have never needed Harden to carry the scoring load. Their offense is at its best when Harden is kicking the ball ahead, or toying with defenses while playing in a lethal two-man game with Embiid.