CAMDEN, N.J. — As they depart for Detroit, the Sixers know they’ll remain down at least two of the four players who missed the team’s overtime loss Wednesday to the Rockets.
Joel Embiid (left knee injury management/personal reasons) will miss his fourth consecutive game. Kyle Lowry will sit out his fifth in a row because of a right hip strain.
“The swelling’s gone down a bit,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said of Embiid’s bothersome knee following his team’s practice Friday. “Still some soreness there. That’s about all I can say.”
Paul George, who’s been out since suffering a left knee bone bruise on Nov. 20 in Memphis, participated fully in practice. He’d said Tuesday that he aimed to return “within the next week” and appears to be on track. The Sixers officially listed George as questionable for their Saturday night matchup with the Pistons.
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“We did do a good amount of contact and playing as well, so it was good to see,” Nurse said. “He looked pretty good out there.”
Caleb Martin was also upgraded to questionable after being sidelined against Houston with upper back soreness. He was a partial participant in Friday’s practice.
Until the Rockets game, Martin had suited up through noticeable physical discomfort multiple times early this season, including with his right shoulder. After playing 13 minutes and shooting 1 for 8 from the floor, the Sixers pulled the plug on Martin’s night in their blowout loss to the Clippers.
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“I try to go as much as I can, and sometimes to a fault,” Martin said. “I kind of knew, coming into that day, that it probably wasn’t the right thing to do for my body. But we’ve got guys banged up and if I can go, I’m going to try to go. And sometimes it’s to a fault, and it’s not going to benefit me or the team the best when I come out and do that. That’s just always how I’ve been. … You learn from it.”
Does Martin expect to be available against the Pistons?
“The plan is always to try to play,” he said. “Obviously, I’ve got to take it day-by-day. I had a good day today. I’m definitely feeling better. … I know many times people have suggested to me not to play and then I do. I’ll take it day-by-day right now. It’ll be up in the air, but if I can go, I’m going to go.”
Whoever’s on the court, the Sixers will again have a significant rest advantage against Detroit. The 8-12 Pistons are set to play the first game of a back-to-back Friday night in Indiana.
The 3-14 Sixers are coming off one of their better performances, albeit in a losing effort. Even if Martin comes back, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see Nurse stick with a starting frontcourt of Guerschon Yabusele and Andre Drummond. Yabusele was excellent in a 22-point outing vs. the Rockets and Drummond had a nice night as a rebounder and defender.
“I was really happy with that,” Nurse said. “I think it made a huge step forward for me from four, five days ago when I was like, ‘Oh my God, it doesn’t look like they can function.’ Organizationally, I think we’ve cleaned up a lot of that for them. Even with really small (lineups) at times, they were just fine out there.
“I think, with a little more tweaking of things at the offensive end, we can find some advantages there. If they’re going to go really small on us and we stay really big like that, I think there’s some advantages there, as long as we can get back and get in the half-court defense with them.
“I think Guerschon’s good enough at switching. Drummond’s decent enough at patrolling back there, rim protecting and protecting the paint. … They’re trying to pick on the mismatches and get little on big … but I think they handled it OK. A lot better than maybe I thought they would, so that’s encouraging.”
