PHILADELPHIA — Wednesday night marked another episode of As The Undermanned 76ers World Turns.
On this episode, Seth Curry joined Tobias Harris and Ben Simmons as no-shows in what was their fourth straight game with multiple players sidelined.
Now the question is who’s going to have the night off Thursday night against the Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum.
But on this night, the Sixers fought valiantly before losing, 116-113, to Phoenix Suns at the Wells Fargo Center.
Chris Paul hit a foul shot with 0.8 seconds left to make it a three point game. Joel Embiid grabbed the rebound off Paul's ensuing missed free throw and fired a 67-foot shot that bounced in and out of the rim.
Philly (39-19), which has lost two straight games, remains in first place in the Eastern Conference, a half game ahead of the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets (39-20) lost to the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday.
Harris missed his third consecutive game with right knee soreness. Simmons was sidelined his second straight game with an illness, while Curry missed the game with left hip flexor recovery. While he played on Monday versus the Golden State Warriors, Curry missed Friday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers with left hip flexor soreness.
So on this night, Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, and Shake Milton joined Danny Green and Embiid in the starting lineup.
Embiid finished with 38 points, 17 rebounds, and four assists. Tyrese Maxey added 14 points in a reserve role. Reserve George Hill had 11 points in his second game as a Sixer. Thybulle did a solid job of defending Suns All-Star shooting guard Devin Booker.
Booker had scored a game-high 36 points on 14-for-23 shooting against the Sixers back on Feb. 13. That marked his seventh straight with 30-plus point against Philly. However, he finished with 19 points on 6-for-14 shooting with Thybulle as the primary defender.
While he missed all four of his shots, the second-year player finished with three blocks and two steals.
Paul paced the Suns (41-16) with 28 points.
Korkmaz rolled his right ankle while slipping on the floor on his way to attempting a layup with 2 minutes, 26 seconds into the second half. The Sixers called a timeout after Paul made a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession.
During the timeout, Korkmaz was subbed out of the game and went to the locker room to be evaluated. After coming out of the locker room, the swingman road the exercise bike and did some exercises with his ankle. He turned to the game with 9:05 remaining.
But in regards to playing undermanned, the Sixers aren’t the only elite team that has been doing that.
While the Sixers want the No. 1 seed, some elite teams are focused on making sure players are 100% healthy for the playoffs over securing a certain seed.
Despite being undermanned, the Sixers were still playing to win. However, there was an incentive to resting players Wednesday in order for them to be healthy Thursday against the Bucks.
Milwaukee prevailed, 109-105, in overtime during the teams’ March 17 meeting at The Center. After playing Bucks Thursday, the teams will meet against Saturday in Milwaukee for the final time of the regular season.
“If you win tomorrow, you have a chance to play for the season series,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said. “But if guys are not healthy, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Rivers was also asked if there’s a balance to determining his playoff rotation versus doing everything he can get the No. 1 seed. That may not go hand-in-hand while it would be ideal to do both.
“They usually don’t go hand-in-hand as we call know,” Rivers said, “because some of it is not rest. Some of it is guys are sick or guys or injured as it’s nothing you can do about it.”
Rivers said the Sixers would clearly like to have the best seed possible.
“But we also would rather be healthy at the same time,” he said. “So it is absolutely a balancing act for sure.”
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