PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers will be pretty shorthanded on Monday when they get set to take on the Miami Heat at home. On the second night of a back-to-back, the Sixers are looking to figure things out and bounce back, but they will have to do so without their two stars.
Both Joel Embiid and James Harden will miss the matchup with the Heat. Embiid is missing the game due to back soreness and Harden is dealing with his hamstring injury so the Sixers are just being cautious with him.
Initial thoughts would go to the gam plan the Sixers said they have for their two stars in order to rest them before the postseason begins, but coach Doc Rivers said that isn’t necessarily the case.
“Not really,” said Rivers. “One it did, but more, both Joel’s been nursing the back and James, we’re very cautious of what’s going on with his hamstring and just being very careful.”
Harden, especially, has been playing some high minutes out on the floor. The Beard is averaging 38.0 minutes per night with the Sixers and Rivers is not happy with that number.
“It’s funny, we go back and forth with our team on it because the whole thing with James is he’s missed a lot before this,” Rivers added. “James is, he wants to build up so he can play 40 minutes a night for the playoffs or have that ability to do that so we’ve done that twice and that’s a good thing, but 39 on an average is too much, but we do. You have to ramp everybody’s minutes up so when you get to the playoffs, they’re able to sustain a little bit more minutes.”
The Sixers and the Heat will match up at 7:30 p.m. EDT on Monday from the Wells Fargo Center.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01eqbvq570kgj8vfs7 image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[listicle id=61529]
[lawrence-related id=61533,61522,61494]