ORLANDO, Fla. — It was a tough night for the Philadelphia 76ers to begin their road trip on Christmas Day against the Miami Heat, but there was a big positive the Sixers took from the loss: Kelly Oubre Jr.
The veteran out of Kansas had his best game since returning from a fractured rib. He had 25 points on 9-for-16 shooting, six 3s and seven rebounds. It was a very nice night for Oubre, which the Sixers can build on.
“Listen, he had kind of a vintage Kelly game, right?” said coach Nick Nurse at practice on Tuesday. “He was at the rim, he was making some tough shots, he was in the middle of everything. Making some things happen. Not all of it was good, right? But some of it was very good, right? I think that for him, it was finally more of, again, a game with more chances. We can see where he was.”
Before the Christmas Day performance, Oubre was averaging 10.1 points and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 45% from the floor and 30.8% from deep. Nurse put the ball in his hands a bit more and let him create more on the offensive end.
“He had the ball a lot more,” Nurse explained. “Just stuff to get him back in the groove of where he was, I don’t even know how many weeks it was ago now, six weeks ago now? Or whatever it’s been. I think it was good. I thought maybe that starting thing with him and Joel (Embiid) being out would maybe help him get a little rhythm back. Let’s hope that’s the case.”
With Embiid out, the Sixers will lean more on players such as Oubre to give more on the offensive end. He is certainly capable of doing so when looking at his resume and seeing what he has been able to do in this league. He just needs to find his rhythm again.
“I feel pretty good,” Oubre added. “Obviously, we needed to have some extra scoring since Jo was out. So it was an opportunity to be aggressive and still try to play within the confines of the game. A lot of us were just trying to feel off of each other and things in the first half were kinda rocky. I just wanted to stay aggressive throughout the whole game and not just a half. Like first half or second half so I feel good.”
The Sixers take on the Orlando Magic on Wednesday before finishing the road trip with matchups against the Houston Rockets and the Chicago Bulls.
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