CAMDEN, N.J. — The Philadelphia 76ers have one final preseason contest on Friday when they play host to the Atlanta Hawks. This will be the final chance for coach Nick Nurse to get his team ramped up for the regular season.
Generally, the preseason finale is something of a dress rehearsal as teams head into the real games and the grind of the regular season.
Nurse, however, is in a tough position. Furkan Korkmaz has been sidelined by a leg strain for the entire preseason. Nurse wants to give him a chance to earn a spot in the rotation and battle Danny Green and Danuel House Jr.
So while Nurse would like to use this final preseason game to get a clear look at his team for the opener, he knows there are still issues to be worked out.
“I think you do,” Nurse began. “I would say there’s a couple caveats there, though. You get to the point where some of the veteran guys, some of them need more minutes for conditioning so we can do that. There’s the Furk situation where he hasn’t played at all, and we need to see him. However, we probably don’t want to overdo it since he’s coming off an injury as well, but I do need to see him and evaluate him for sure.”
He also hasn’t had Joel Embiid on the floor yet in the preseason though that is expected to change on Friday. He wants Embiid to play with the likes of Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris in this new system.
“We’ll see how many minutes Joel ends up needing as well, so I think there’s still some things to play out,” the coach continued. “You say is it like a last look at how the rotation’s gonna look and minutes. I see minutes going up for the Tyrese’s and the Tobias’ and the guys and (De’Anthony) Melt a little bit. I think that’s just natural to kinda ramp those guys up, but there’s a little bit of feel to it tomorrow night with certain guys.”
Nurse certainly has an idea who will get playing time when the season opens on Oct. 26 in Milwaukee, but he also understands situations like this are very fluid at the moment.
“I think that it’s a little bit clearer,” Nurse said of his rotation. “We’re spending a lot of time in our staff meetings about who looks good where and what combinations of guys will fit. We’re learning about some of these guys as well so I think it’s not crystal clear by any means, and it probably will not be for a while. Then as soon as you get it crystal clear, something else happens and it changes it all anyway.”
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