It might have been difficult to believe late Saturday night that the Sixers were primed to return home later this week having notched a winning road trip, but that is now the opportunity in front of them. Just 24 hours after being embarrassed by the lowly New Orleans Pelicans, the Sixers emphatically handled the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday night. They will face the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday with a chance to salvage a trip which began in the most disastrous of ways.

On Monday evening, the Sixers will not play a basketball game, but they will unveil an initial injury report for Tuesday's contest which will indicate whether or not Joel Embiid may return to action.

The Sixers had been 0-4 across four straight games without Embiid (knee/shin) before pummeling a short-handed Minnesota frontcourt without him on Sunday. And while the Sixers' performance against the Timberwolves was reminiscent of their early-season success sans Embiid, there are more questions than answers about this team's survival skills without the former NBA MVP.

In this week's 5 Sixers thoughts, taking the temperature of the mood within the team about the Embiid-less struggles, some important lineup combination notes, a batch of quotes from the newest member of the Sixers and a look at the team's new two-way picture:

The downside of continuity

Sixers head coach Nick Nurse and at least a few of his most prominent players were in agreement over the course of the last week: because Embiid only had a few scripted absences in January and played so well in so many minutes, the Sixers had finally achieved continuity with Embiid – making it harder to adjust to his sudden absence.

"I think that certainly, the guys found a comfort level of playing with him there for a while," Nurse said on Friday. "And listen, I think the truth of the matter is it's not that easy, shifting these styles of play all the time... That it's not [clicking] is probably understandable, and I had a pretty long talk with most of those guys this morning: 'Yeah, it's difficult. I get it. But I also want to go back and let's figure out what we did and our mindset and the place we played at and the threes we generated and the things we did.'"

What did Nurse see in October and November that had been invisible in February up until Sunday night?

"I thought they played with so much more confidence and aggressiveness and all that early on, and then the flow changed for whatever reason," Nurse said. "And again, it is difficult. It is hard. I understand that. I mean, hey, it's not that easy on the coaching staff to keep juggling it. But I just think they've gotten a little less aggressive... we just didn't play that way early. It was so much faster and attacking and so much more confidence and bounce and all that stuff, and we can't let the difficulty take that away from us. We've got to get that little edge back."

At the head of the snake without Embiid is Tyrese Maxey, a star who looked like a superstar in the opening months of the season before experiencing prolonged (relative) struggles over the last several weeks. Between Embiid's recent absence and Paul George's 25-game suspension, the Sixers have more than half of their financial commitments for the 2025-26 season unavailable. Fatigue has kicked in as Maxey has racked up a workload which is historically heavy. It has impacted his play quite a bit.

Is it now harder to get used to life without Embiid after his lengthy stretch of dominance?

"It definitely is, definitely is. We're playing multiple styles of basketball," Maxey said. "...It's weird, I've had a successful year, but I've played three different roles. And that's difficult. But it comes with it sometimes, and that's not an excuse that you can use."

No excuses were needed on Sunday. Maxey finally looked free again, exploding by defenders, then putting them on their heels and rising up for threes, playing with more pace and intensity than anyone else on the floor. It was an early-season-like masterclass:

Maxey made 16 of his 28 shot attempts on Sunday. And in his ninth game in the month of February, it was the first time he shot better than 50 percent from the field.

MORE: What is it like to learn how to play with Embiid? His teammates explain

The Sixers' best lineup for now?

When George was suspended, one of the silver linings Nurse spoke about was that the Sixers could now get longer looks at a bunch of players, particularly in the frontcourt mix, with enticing flashes to their name but not enough consistent minutes to prove themselves. Dominick Barlow was already entrenched as a rotation mainstays at power forward, but Jabari Walker and Trendon Watford had also shown real promise despite never being true staples.

But, with a month to go on George's suspension, the best solution to not having him at the four might not be any of those players.

The lineup that had the strongest role in powering the Sixers' early-season success was built around three guards in Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes. But that was not the extent of its small-ball nature. The Sixers' production went to another level when Kelly Oubre Jr. slid up to power forward. No matter who the center was, those lineups were dominant.

Nurse more or less ditched Oubre at the four when the Sixers were at least close to full strength. But it could be making a comeback. Actions speak louder than words, and the fact that Nurse has gone to his three best guards and Oubre together in multiple recent fourth quarters says a lot. Nurse acknowledged that those units can be taken advantage of defensively and on the glass by certain opponents. But they are also a pretty reliable bet in terms of generating good looks on offense.

"I usually end up going to that lineup when I'm feeling like there's not enough space to play with on offense," Nurse said. "...We're trying to get more shooting and more spacing out there, so hopefully some driving [opportunities] and paint touches present themselves and more threes present themselves."

In 284 total possessions with Maxey, Edgecombe, Grimes and Oubre on the floor, the Sixers have been elite on offense (123.2 points scored per 100 possessions) and defense (105.5 points allowed per 100 possessions), leading to an outstanding Net Rating of +17.7.

A combination that has not worked

On the other hand, Nurse has tried the opposite approach, going as big as he can in the frontcourt at the expense of shooting and spacing. That has typically involved Trendon Watford – out of the rotation for two games running now – playing alongside two other bigs. And those lineups have been absolutely crushed, outscored by 21.0 points per 100 possessions across a 150-possession sample.

As more and more NBA teams pivot in the direction of double-big lineups and crashing the offensive glass as a source of stable scoring, it is an understandable impulse on Nurse's part. But there is just not enough shooting on the floor to allow someone like Maxey or Edgecombe to thrive when Watford, Walker and Adem Bona – all either rarely-used shooters or non-shooters – are clogging the paint.

It is hard to stomach more than one piece of an offense being ignorable for a defense; if Maxey goes into an isolation with Watford and two other bigs on the floor, the Sixers have three of them:

Nurse has often described Watford as a point guard of sorts, and the 24-year-old does have very strong passing and ball-handling chops at his size. Moments after attributing Maxey's struggles in a loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday to not having "a ton of space," he did not entertain how the triple-big lineup played a role in the difficult environment Maxey had to inhabit.

"Well, we like to play Trendon as some help ball-handling," Nurse said. "He's a good-sized guy, but he's more of a perimeter player. Yeah."

While Watford's ideal role is as a ball-handler, it forces a fairly specific sort of group of players around him for his skills to be optimized. Because Watford borders on being a non-shooter, it is not exactly fair to characterize him as a perimeter player, because if the ball is not in his hands he has little to no utility on the perimeter. Perhaps Watford being out of the rotation entirely over the weekend is a sign that Nurse is prepared to ditch a failed experiment.

MORE: Cam Payne talks return to Philadelphia, goals for rest of season, more

Tyrese Martin talks joining Sixers

Once Walker's standard contract became official last week, so did the Sixers' two-way agreement with Allentown native Tyrese Martin. On Thursday, Martin met with the media to discuss joining his hometown team and the opportunity ahead of him.

A transcript of Martin's first availability as a member of the Sixers:

• Martin on when he got wind of this new opportunity:

"Heard about it probably a week or so ago, and after that All-Star break hit, so couldn't really get anything done. So I just went on break, still worked out and things like that, and then when the break was over and Jabari got converted, we were able to make things happen. And I'm excited to be here."

• Martin on his process when it comes to acclimating within a new team:

"Just being yourself every day. Meeting the players, try to build relationships as quick as possible with coaches and players. And then just doing my part, trying to get to know everybody's names, things like that. On the basketball court, it's going to take care of itself after I figure out the schemes, plays, principles on both sides of the [floor], but I think I'll pick things up pretty fast."

• Martin on how helpful it is to have a former teammate already on his new team in Watford:

"It definitely helps with him being here. He texted me a week ago or so about it. So him being here is definitely going to make this process a little easier."

• Martin on his earliest Sixers memory:

"Being back home in Allentown. They had a preseason game at the new arena they opened up there, the PPL Center. I remember going to that game. I think I got a picture with K.J. McDaniels."

• Martin on what he thinks he can bring to this team:

"I think with my size, I can just do a little bit of everything well. I can handle the ball at the one and shoot the ball. But I think the main thing is going to be my toughness and my competitiveness on the defensive end. Ball pressure, pick up guys, just play tough. I think that's where I could find myself fitting in real fast on this team."

• Martin on if the Sixers' recent history of two-way success stories encourages him:

"For sure. When things come, the opportunity presents itself this late in the season for something like that, you kind of hope for it. I've been in that situation before, on a two-way [contract] and getting converted in the middle of the season. I know the type of work it takes and stuff. So credit to [Walker and Barlow], and obviously the organization plays the two-ways and they have a path for them. And we'll get into what my path and my thing is for the rest of the season going forward, but right now I'm just doing what I've done when I've been in this situation before: bet on myself."

MORE: How would trade deadline have gone without George's suspension?

Two-way outlook for remainder of season

Speaking of two-way usage, it has been imperative to the Sixers all season long, with Barlow earning a starting spot and standard deal before Walker eventually got promoted, too. Now, the Sixers have three like-sized players with unusually significant NBA experience on two-way deals: Martin, MarJon Beauchamp and Dalen Terry.

With 25 games left in the season, the Sixers' two-way players have the following numbers of remaining available games:

Since Beauchamp has more games of availability remaining than the Sixers do contests left on their schedule, the team does not need to make any effort to practice moderation with his usage. However, only 15 players can be available on any given night, so it might take multiple injuries for him to dress. Johni Broome likely being done for the season probably works to the benefit of Beauchamp more than anybody else.