De George: With healthier 76ers, Nick Nurse’s job changes without getting easier

PHILADELPHIA — Nick Nurse’s candor Tuesday night might have been easier with the win on the board and the slight delirium engendered by the days approaching the trade deadline. But it was telling nonetheless.

Tuesday’s 118-116 win over Dallas marked the return of Joel Embiid from a 15-game absence. If felt pregnant with possibility, that the tide might be turning on a season of injuries that have made Nurse’s job immensely more complicated.

But Nurse is merely trading one type of complexity for another. Without Embiid, Paul George and a bunch of guys who may or may not be traded in the next week, the 76ers played well, stringing together four straight wins and narrow losses to Denver and Boston before the victory over the Mavericks. For Nurse to have gotten the group there without two of the Big 3 is a massive accomplishment. And his reward is a wholly different but still daunting challenging of grafting the good from those performances onto the more talented and more aged lineups that a return to health will bring.

If everything in 76ers land followed some semblance of a plan, Tuesday might’ve marked a turning point. The 76ers struggled massively early in the season with nightly uncertainty as to if Embiid, George and others would be available. They found competence with continuity, when they accepted those absences and had a runway to work together with the group on hand – a less talented group than one involving Embiid and company, but with the same guys night after night nonetheless.

Now Nurse might finally get to see this third age – of Embiid and George, maybe in restricted quantities so as to preserve their bodies, plus all the players that came of age while they were convalescing. That is, to just name a few: Guerschon Yabusele actually playing the position he was acquired for; Justin Edwards getting to play a reasonable amount of minutes; Ricky Council’s defense augmenting Embiid’s in the post; Eric Gordon getting to space around Embiid as was expected in the summer.

It will take time, Nurse admitted, with the Dallas game as a template, particularly on the defensive end.

“I think that anything we tried different tonight was really bad,” he said. “We just couldn’t get it set up. For whatever reason, guys were shifting one, two spots down the line in the rotations or just even getting down and getting it set up, we had a couple of absolutely blown transitions,” he said. “… That’s some of the organizational stuff that’s tough when people are coming in and out all the time. We’ve been in a really good groove with that stuff, at least getting into the stuff and executing that.”

Defensively, it was a back-to-basics approach in straight man-to-man after a few botched zone coverages that finally got the Sixers back on track. Offensively, Nurse admitted they ran “a few things late in the game that we don’t really run ever,” to get Tyrese Maxey space against a vexing Mavs zone.

There’s give-and-take in every aspect, and Yabusele is a great example. As an undersized center, much of the offense ran through the two-man game of him and Maxey, actions and spaces that belong to Embiid now. But Yabusele as a power forward now has a size advantage in the lane, with room to catch-and-shoot or occupy the dunker spot, which would free up someone else to shoot.

The trade deadline is part of the conundrum. Rumors have swirled around Yabusele, given his cap-friendly one-year deal, though the league-wide chaos has quieted that whirl to some degree. His chances of remaining with the 76ers is increased by clearing cap space with the offloading of the Martins. Both KJ Martin and Caleb Martin have been out for so long that there’s no continuity lost by their departures, and it may offer Edwards and Council validation that they’re on the right path. Quentin Grimes’ introduction is a wrinkle, albeit one that brings more shooting than either Martin for a team that has risen to 21st in the league in shooting percentage and 20th in 3-point percentage.

“I think Grimes is going to be great for us,” Embiid said. “What he provides with his shooting ability, defensively, I think we’re going to miss a lot from Caleb but we’re going to gain a lot from Quentin Grimes.”

As with anything else in Philadelphia, it all comes down to Embiid, though in a different way than usual. Yes, it matters how often he’s in the lineup, and the 76ers’ full potential is a flight of utter fancy if the NBA MVP is absent in there. His 29-11-10 triple-double after 15 games out reinforced that, in case anyone forgot.

Embiid, as ever, talks a great game. He’s willing to be deferential to what is working. He expressed admiration for the depth guys that succeeded without him, keeping the bottom from falling out. He said Tuesday that he told Maxey, before his sixth straight 30-point game, to just keep doing what he’s doing. “I’m here to help,” was Embiid’s message. “… Just do what you’ve been doing the last few weeks. Don’t mind people being back.”

Nurse has done a quality job to get the 76ers to this point still in contention. He’ll have to do another, very different job for them to maximize their potential.

Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@delcotimes.com