Sixers can’t take opponents for granted, even with the Wizards and Pelicans coming to town

From the outside looking in, it appeared like the 76ers were set up to sweep a three-game homestand against struggling teams.

But as we learned in Monday’s 109-99 setback to the Phoenix Suns, the Sixers (14-20) can’t take any team for granted.

They struggled to make shots and failed to get defensive stops against the Suns (16-18), who had been losers of four straight and seven of their last eight games.

» READ MORE: What happened to Paul George’s shot? The Sixers are working on it.

Now, the Sixers turn their attention to the Washington Wizards, a team with the NBA’s worst record (6-27) entering Tuesday’s game against the Houston Rockets. The Sixers will take a five-game series winning streak into Wednesday’s contest at the Wells Fargo Center.

After Wednesday’s game, the Sixers will conclude this homestand against the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans enter Tuesday’s game versus the Minnesota Timberwolves with the Western Conference’s worst record (7-29).

However, they’ll be without two of their best players in Joel Embiid and Paul George against the Wizards. Kyle Lowry also will sit out.

Embiid (sprained left foot) and Lowry (sore right hip) will miss their second consecutive games. Meanwhile, George will miss the game with left groin tightness. This comes after the nine-time All-Star participated in Tuesday’s light practice and partook in post-practice shooting drills with star guard Tyrese Maxey.

Embiid, Lowry, and Andre Drummond did not practice. Drummond, who also missed Monday’s game, is questionable for Wednesday with a sprained left toe.

The undermanned team already was without Jared McCain (left knee surgery) and KJ Martin (left foot stress reaction).

No matter who is available, the Sixers will be charged with setting their focus on playing better. Their offense is ranked 29th in the NBA in assists (21.9 per game), 28th in scoring (107.4 points per game), and 25th in field-goal percentage (44.7%) and three-point percentage (34%).

All of those weaknesses were on display against Phoenix, as the Sixers shot 39.1% from the field — including 15-for-40 on three-pointers. They also made just 16 of 26 foul shots.

“Well, I think there’s always execution cleanup stuff,” coach Nick Nurse said Tuesday of what the team can do differently. “Last night, I think that if I had to pick a couple of things out, I didn’t love our general spacing, things that had been really good in a lot of the games recently, spacing. I thought there were some chances when we hit the paint to kick out to open shooters, as well.”

» READ MORE: Sixers takeaways: Kelly Oubre Jr. underused, Paul George plays isolation ball

Instead, the Sixers sometimes forced up tough shots at the rim and routinely failed to finish drives to the basket.

“If you are going to get one-on-one at the rim that deep in the paint, you got to make more,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know what we ended up with, but I know in the first half, we were 5-of-18 [shooting] at the rim. When you are getting there, you got to be able to finish.”

In a physical game, the referees didn’t call a lot of the bumps and hits players are accustomed to receiving on layups. During timeouts, Sixers coaches reminded players not to play with the hope of drawing fouls. They were instructed to go hard to the basket with an intent to score or kick the ball out to an open teammate.

The Sixers also want to maintain their focus amid scoring droughts and rough patches during games.

“Just weathering the storm and maintaining focus, I think, is big for us,” Caleb Martin said. “Once we get out of that, then we will learn how to close games, and then all the pieces start to come together.”

Martin thinks the Sixers are slowly getting to that point.

“That’s a good problem to have because we weren’t having the problem early in the season,” he said. “We were worrying about trying to win a game. Now, we are worrying about maintaining focus and finishing a game.

“So we are putting ourselves in position to win games now. That’s good. We just got to get over that hump a lot sooner than later right now. We’re getting there. We just need that little extra juice.”

In other news, the Sixers waived two-way post player Pete Nance. The 6-foot-11, 230-pounder had three points and one rebound in 2 minutes, 56 seconds of action against the Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 30. It was his only NBA action after signing with the Sixers on Dec. 3.