Despite scoring a career-high 50 points, Tyrese Maxey had Kelly Oubre Jr. on his mind, who was struck by a car on Saturday night, after the Sixers’ 137-126 win over the Pacers on Sunday.
The Sixers will need a replacement starter again Tuesday.
Ahead of a second matchup against the Pacers in three days, the team listed Nicolas Batum as out because of personal reasons.
After missing two games for personal reasons following the Sixers’ trade with the Clippers, Batum played in the last four. Sunday’s was his 1,000th career game in the NBA, and he had an important role in the Sixers’ Tyrese Maxey-starring win vs. Indiana. Batum started, played 33 minutes, served as the main defender on All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton, and added nine points, seven rebounds, three blocks and a steal.
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Joel Embiid, who just won the Eastern Conference’s Player of the Week award, was listed as questionable for Tuesday's game with left hip soreness. He’s played in all nine Sixers games so far and averaged 33.8 minutes. The team has a back-to-back on deck that will conclude with the Celtics visiting Philadelphia on Wednesday night.
Batum on Sunday filled Kelly Oubre Jr's starting spot. Oubre suffered a fractured rib this weekend in a stunning incident when a car struck him while he was walking in Philadelphia. He's been home the last two days and the Sixers have said they plan to re-evaluate him in approximately a week.
“We did send him a little video after the game last night,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said following the team’s practice Monday. “He sent his appreciation back, how much he liked it. And there’s some of us going over to see him this afternoon, so we’ll check in on him.”
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In addition to backup center Paul Reed, Nurse used Patrick Beverley, Robert Covington, Furkan Korkmaz and Danuel House Jr. off the bench in the first game of the Pacers mini-series.
He’ll now have to make further rotation adjustments.
“I think there’s still so much more movement to be had,” Nurse said, “just because the guys that even played — Pat, Furk, House and Cov — most of them are around 15 minutes or less. So within those guys, there’s still some extended time we can figure out. … We’ll just kind of see how it rolls out tomorrow.”
