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CAMDEN, N.J. — The cold, dreary weather of winter has provided an appropriate backdrop for the Philadelphia 76ers. The latest bad breaks in their snowballing misfortune are the new injuries to Joel Embiid (sinus fracture) and Jared McCain (left knee meniscus tear). Very little has gone right for them this season — and the few things that do have not lasted long.
“We can't seem to clear the runway and get going,” head coach Nick Nurse said after Sunday's practice. “And when we do, the snow piles up a little bit again, whatever way you want to look at it. But we’ll just keep going here.”
Embiid will miss the Sixers' next game on Monday against the Charlotte Hornets, though it was not ruled out right away. Nonetheless, managing another head injury on top of left knee troubles that have already eaten into a major chunk of his season is no fun. McCain's timeline for a return won’t be known until he has surgery — Nurse estimated that it could happen this week — but the remainder of his season is in jeopardy.
Nurse said the team still hasn’t identified the play where McCain got injured. He has watched the game four times and wasn’t tipped off to any knee issue. Nurse explained that McCain woke up “not feeling great,” which necessitated the examination that uncovered the tear in his meniscus.
“You've got to try to keep things long-term, [which] I think is most important in perspective,” the 76ers' head coach said. “How does this affect him going forward in his career, which we hope is many, many years? Never really get a chance to go back and try to win the Rookie of the Year award, which I think that's a major one to have…It's obviously a tough way to go out and not have that. But again, keep it in perspective. It's a long career, hopefully. [We'll] get him as healthy as we can and get him ready to go as soon as we can.”
The 76ers have seen more different versions of their team than they've cared to see this season — versions with all of its marquee players and with different combinations of some or none of them. The culmination of their injury-plagued squad and 14 different starting lineups in 23 games is a 7-16 record and one of the worst offenses in the NBA. Now, they’ll get to see what it’s like to play without McCain, who was one of three Sixers to appear in each game along with Guerschon Yabusele and Kelly Oubre Jr.
Learning to adjust plans at a moment's notice in the wake of new information on any given player's injury has become a requirement for Nurse and the Sixers.
“It's obviously difficult,” Nurse said. “You guys are here watching it all. There's a lot of disruption, a lot of unrhythmic play. A couple of good weeks, I think — six, seven games of pretty good play. Give 'em credit; they fought through it a little bit. Got a little bump in the road. We gotta we gotta keep on moving.”
76ers looking to get back on track amid awful injury luck
Caleb Martin said that the 76ers' pile of injuries has been “a test for the mental.” For the time being, the team is holding its head high and powering through the storm.
“We've had things pop up here and there, so we just feel like we've been adjusting to stuff all season,” he said. “But the mentality is always good. Everybody's in a good head space still. Obviously, we'd love to be in a better position all the way down the line, but we all have that support from the top bottom for each other and through the team. The goal has still been the same: just to progress and get better and find ways to win games.”
Despite discovering new rock bottoms at every turn this season — reaching depths that shock even the diehard fans and dedicated observers of this snakebitten team — the 76ers have to keep moving forward.
“I know that we have to stay positive. We can't give up,” Yabusele said. “We have to stay together no matter what happens. Everybody on the team can play, so everybody's gotta be ready to have a different role to try to fit out what the other guys [are] doing.”
The injury bug has come for almost every one of Philly's rotation players, including Martin, who is dealing with a right shoulder impingement. He hasn’t been afraid to play through pain or injuries in the past, acknowledging that no NBA player is 100 percent healthy in the grind of the season, but his focus now is “being able to get yourself to a point to play to where you're not hurting the team as well.”
The 76ers wing said that he's “definitely” started to feel better and that he and the team's medical staff are on the same page. “Just taking it day by day. Just trying to work to get myself back to a point, to a level I know I can I can be at,” he said.
Kyle Lowry, who missed the 76ers' last game due to back spasms, was a full participant in Sunday's practice, while Adem Bona, who is dealing with left knee tendinopathy, did not participate. Martin, who was a limited participant in practice, and Bona have both been ruled out for Monday's game in Charlotte, along with Embiid and McCain.
The 76ers are not that far out of the playoff picture — they probably won’t be for a while in such a weak Eastern Conference — but their schedule is about to get a lot tougher. They need to start stacking wins now.
After facing the Hornets in each of their next two games, they have to play the Cleveland Cavaliers on the second night of a back-to-back, face the San Antonio Spurs, and then begin a six-game road trip with a Christmas showdown against the Boston Celtics. One stop on that road trip is a game against the Golden State Warriors, the first of many playoff-caliber teams they'll see in January.
The 76ers have started to put together small winning streaks and stay competitive in most of their recent losses rather than getting blown out. But even when they take a small step forward, a meteor strikes that knocks them flat on their back and sidelines their key players for some time. All they can do is pick themselves up and keep it moving.
“I think we've been playing really good,” Yabusele said. “I think it's encouraging for us to keep doing what we're doing. We'll figure it out, and I think we'll still have something to play for.”
