With Tyrese Maxey’s concussion, the Sixers are creeping closer to the point of no return

A gray sky hung over the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday afternoon, blanketing the place with bleakness you could feel in your bones.

The weather was pretty bad, too.

It’s getting late early for the Sixers. That’s so self-evident that it almost feels like piling on to point it out. Their MVP and reason for living remains on the sideline. Their best hope for survival is currently concussed. If the playoffs had begun on Wednesday, the Sixers would have needed to win one of two play-in games to earn the right to play Boston or Milwaukee in the first round. They are a combined 1-5 against the Celtics and Bucks so far this season.

» READ MORE: Sixers blow 15-point second-half lead, fall to Memphis Grizzlies

At times like these, avoidance can be a healthy coping mechanism. If you can’t beat it, ignore it. That’s where the Sixers are.

“I don’t know the exact number, but I think that 2019 team in Toronto, once we hit the playoffs, our starting five had something like 56 minutes together,” Nick Nurse said of his Raptors team that won the 2018-19 title. “That’s not very much. Right? It kind of keeps building through the playoffs. So I think it can be done. I think that’s where we’re probably going to be. I’m rooting for 56.”

Nurse laughed. Which, again, is probably the best thing to do for a guy in his position. Of the 10 players who appeared in the Sixers’ season opener five months ago, only three were in uniform against the Grizzlies on Wednesday. The missing seven include three who are hurt — all of them starters — and four who are no longer with the team. That does not include Kyle Lowry, the veteran newcomer who took a load management day coming off Tuesday night’s loss to the Nets in Brooklyn.

The end result was a starting lineup that would have made the worst of the Process teams look like the Tune Squad. Tobias Harris and Buddy Hield surrounded by Cam Payne, Nico Batum, and Paul Reed. When going through hell, you can keep going all you want. Sometimes, hell wins.

If there was any benefit to throwing in the towel, the Sixers would be loosening in the bullpen right about now. Their formula for a playoff run was always contingent on winning just enough games without Joel Embiid to avoid the play-in tournament and a first-round matchup against one of the Eastern Conference’s top two seeds. In order to do so, they would need everything to break perfectly: Tyrese Maxey to carry the scoring load, Lowry and De’Anthony Melton to play the perimeter defense that might help offset Embiid’s best-in-class paint protection. The rest, Nurse would fill in with his whiteboard brilliance.

Just as important were the things they could not do: namely, lose winnable games against teams like the Nets.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid’s injuries are what they are. The Sixers need to be better prepared for them.

In some ways, it is remarkable that the Sixers are in as good of a position as they are. Even after Tuesday’s 112-107 loss in Brooklyn, they were just a half-game behind the Heat for the sixth seed and a full game behind the Magic for the fourth seed. This, despite losing 13 of their last 19 games dating back to Jan. 25.

Still, they are sinking. Embiid still does not have an official timeline to return. Wednesday marked four weeks since he underwent surgery on his knee. He met with the media last week and sounded cautiously optimistic about a return before the end of the regular season. But Nurse said he had no update on his big man. The days are dwindling.

The concussion Maxey suffered against the Mavericks over the weekend was the latest blow. It could be a fatal one if his absence stretches much longer than the current two games.

Missing the play-in tournament entirely would require an epic collapse, not to mention some epic success from the teams beneath them in the standings. They entered Wednesday with a 7½-game lead over the 10th-seeded Hawks with 21 games to play.

But they will need something dramatic to change to climb again. They have five games coming up against the Knicks, Heat, and Bucks, a trio that has beaten them in all six games already. They have nine more games against Western Conference playoff teams, five of them against the West’s top six seeds. More than a third of their wins have come against the four worst teams in the Eastern Conference. Think about that. The Sixers are 13-0 against the Pistons, Wizards, Hornets, and Raptors. They are 22-27 against everybody else.

» READ MORE: Tyrese Maxey will sit out against Memphis Grizzlies, missing second game with concussion

“It’s been difficult,” Nurse said before Wednesday’s 115-109 loss to the Grizzlies. “I think that, you know, the hard part is, you have to accept the reality of the situation. Changes come and go, guys come and go, injuries come and go, and then you kind of get the group together and you start feeling pretty good, you get a couple W’s, you start looking like you’re really doing something good, and then you lose another major piece. Right as you built some momentum, you get knocked back a little.

“But that’s it, man. Hopefully we learned some things from [Tuesday] night with the group we had out there. We’ve got another little change to the group tonight. But we’ve got to take what we learned [Tuesday] night with the guys that are playing and apply it to today and try to smooth out some of the edges and try to build some chemistry and then just remain in the fight mode. We have to fight like heck and give ourselves a chance in the game and try to pick it off at the end.”

He was talking about that night’s game, but he might as well have been talking about the season. The Sixers have no choice but to believe in Embiid’s ability to step back onto the court and instantly make them a team capable of a run similar to the one the Heat went on last season while charging from the play-in tournament to the NBA Finals. We’ll see how long they can continue to muster it.