March 10, 2026
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
With the Sixers severely undermanned, Kelly Oubre Jr. will be more important than ever over the next few weeks.
PHILADELPHIA – On a night in which it should not have been difficult to be optimistic about the Sixers – without their three highest-paid players, they fought back to win in an exciting fourth quarter, beating the Memphis Grizzlies 139-129 behind a bunch of impressive individual performances – it is awfully difficult not to worry about what comes next.
While VJ Edgecombe returned from a three-game absence on Tuesday night, news broke that Tyrese Maxey's finger sprain includes tendon damage and he will be out for at least three more weeks, joining Joel Embiid on the shelf. But, for what it's worth, Edgecombe, Cam Payne and Kelly Oubre Jr. led the Sixers to victory on a night when it felt like everything was snowballing on them. The atmosphere in Xfinity Mobile Arena got antsy at one point, but eventually a small-ball Sixers lineup made a spirited push to dominate the fourth quarter and emerge victorious.
Payne's unconscious 8-for-8 three-point shooting line may be the headliner from this game, but the Sixers also got important minutes from Oubre, who had the first 30-point, 10-rebound game of his career, as well as Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes. Any Sixers win in the games ahead will have to be a collective effort in which the Sixers perform at a caliber greater than the sum of their parts. After about two hours of failing to meet that mark, the Sixers emphatically rose to the task in the final frame.
Thoughts on how the team will look without Maxey for the majority of the remainder of the season, plus a long batch of notes from Tuesday's action:
Particularly because there is not yet an end in sight for Embiid's absence caused by an oblique injury and Paul George's suspension runs for another two weeks, it is difficult to fathom how the Sixers can withstand their most dependable player – one tasked with a workload that is historically significant – being sidelined for at least three weeks. But that is what the Sixers must do, having already let their playoff spot slip away with their recent struggles.
Last week the Sixers' goal was to avoid having to participate in the NBA Play-In Tournament for the second time in three years; now it feels like an inevitability. They will likely take the floor without a foundational piece far too many more times over the next few weeks to keep pace with the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat; the Atlanta Hawks could very easily pass them, too.
If the Sixers, currently the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference, slide down one spot, they will have to win two do-or-die games in a row just for the right to face the best team in the Eastern Conference in a best-of-seven series. That is a distinct possibility now, if not the single most likely outcome.
Edgecombe, who came into the NBA expected to struggle as a ball-handler, is now the Sixers' primary ball-handler for multiple weeks of crucial games. And while Edgecombe has proven to be far more advanced on the ball than anticipated, he is not close to as good as the sort of player a team would generally ask to run its offense night in and night out.
The Sixers have very little guard depth; Payne will be a crucial reserve no matter how he plays, backing up a starting duo of Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes. Of course, the Sixers trading Jared McCain and failing to backfill his spot until bringing Payne back from Serbia hits even harder now.
Ultimately, the only potential saving grace here would be Embiid making a return almost immediately and staying on the floor. At that point, the Sixers would at least have some chance of staying afloat given the way Embiid has performed when on the floor over the last two-plus months. But there is no indication yet about Embiid's timeline; Sixers head coach Nick Nurse declined to provide an update before Tuesday's game but suggested that one will be issued closer to the end of the week.
A batch of game-specific notes:
• Payne knocked down four triples in the early portion of the second quarter alone, and his heater ran through the entire game. He was absolutely outstanding, and the Sixers are going to need more nights like this one from him in the weeks ahead. Payne provides a palpable pace to any offense he joins, and that is a real asset. But his impact on this Sixers team will have a hard ceiling if he does not make shots. Things have been trending upward for him of late. On Tuesday, he became the first Sixers reserve to reach the 30-point mark this season.
• Perhaps it is because of Memphis' incredibly small lineups – the Grizzlies did not have any true NBA bigs active on Tuesday – but when Adem Bona encountered early foul trouble, it was Jabari Walker, not Andre Drummond, summoned into the game by Nurse. When Bona returned to foul trouble, Dominick Barlow replaced him. Nurse has been oddly resistant to going with Walker or Barlow at the five for much of the year after some promising early-season results. Drummond earned some margin for error with his strong start to the campaign, but his production has tailed off in a major way. It has been months since Drummond helped the Sixers win.
• Before Tuesday's game, Nurse objected to the idea of needing to keep Oubre and Grimes comfortable in the sorts of roles they will occupy when (if?) the Sixers reach full strength again. The Sixers have too urgent of a need when it comes to short-term scoring juice to do anything other than turn to their two players best equipped to provide it. Oubre and Grimes both had strong starts; Oubre was particularly good and his ability to get to the rim quickly will be particularly valuable moving forward as a device to bail the Sixers out of lackluster possessions.
• While the Sixers' offense was more than good enough to easily win a game against a fellow shorthanded team in Memphis, their defense left a whole lot to be desired. While the personnel available was far from ideal, the Sixers displayed far worse execution and connectivity on Tuesday than they did in their loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers the night before.
• Nurse once again had all three of his two-way players available, and he opted to use Dalen Terry, not Tyrese Martin or MarJon Beauchamp. Terry has extensive NBA experience, but he profiles as little more than a defensive-oriented wing. He was part of the smaller Sixers lineup that flipped the script on the game and his energy was excellent.
• The Sixers were just as bad on the defensive glass as they were the defensive end. It did not look good in the box score, but it looked even worse in person. The Sixers, far too often, were caught ball-watching under the basket. After one particularly brutal sequence, Edgecombe was intently yelling in an effort to get his team locked back in. It might have been the defining visual of the night, given how the team locked in afterwards.
Up next: The Sixers will be back in action on Thursday night when they take on the Eastern Conference-best Detroit Pistons on the road.
