Against quality competition, it takes a collective effort to win in the NBA. After escaping with a win over the Indiana Pacers on Friday night with just three strong individual showings, the Sixers learned their lesson the hard way on Sunday evening in Atlanta.

Facing a solid Hawks team, the same three players – Joel Embiid, Paul George and VJ Edgecombe – submitted quality showings in the absence of Tyrese Maxey. But with Maxey's illness, multiple frontcourt injuries, two sophomores in Jared McCain and Justin Edwards struggling mightily and another one in Adem Bona falling out of the rotation, the Sixers just did not have enough manpower to beat a good team.

They are 14-11 after falling to the Hawks, 120-117, in a game they spent the vast majority of trailing. There were clearly positive signs from some of the most important players on the roster. Perhaps George and Edgecombe playing as well as they did – and Embiid playing at all – will be more important long-term than any win or loss would be. But those three players gave the Sixers enough to notch a win, and the depth behind them completely failed.

As always, the action went down to the final buzzer, but the Sixers found themselves on the wrong end of a nail-biter after a brutal end-of-game sequence in which the Sixers failed to get an optimal shot off with a chance to take the lead, then wasted much of the remaining time failing to get an intentional foul. They were on the wrong end of a non-called backcourt violation, but by that point the Sixers had done enough damage to themselves. They did not do enough to win this game as a team.

On George's new role, Embiid's major checkpoint and Edgecombe's explosion, all of which may be lost in the shuffle of a defeat:

Paul George should keep getting the ball

Even if it is never his nominal position – or the one Sixers head coach Nick Nurse refers to him as – George is clearly this team's most reliable ball-handler behind Maxey right now. Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes are both best as secondary or tertiary ball-handlers, and for much of the season the Sixers have struggled with Maxey on the bench as those two guards have attempted to tag-team the backup point guard spot. Jared McCain is still a ways from his best self, too.

With every passing game – no pun intended – George looks considerably more comfortable playing in a primary ball-handling role and striking the right balance between playmaking and hunting for his own shots. With the Sixers looking for a push early in the second quarter on Sunday, the moment called for a more assertive scorer, so George fit the bill and rattled off nine quick points: 

On both ends of the floor, George's presence this season has brought along with it senses of security and stability. He scored 17 points on 11 shots in 14 minutes prior to intermission – a 4-for-5 line from beyond the arc did wonders – and was more responsible than anybody else for the Sixers withstanding an early Atlanta run that could have created a significant deficit. He had another terrific burst in the middle of the fourth quarter when the Hawks had the Sixers on the ropes. 

Last season, George lacked the requisite explosion to create advantages off the dribble. Defenses came to realize this and sat on George's pull-up shooting and deceleration moves. This year, George has had more than enough success getting by his man; it has not just created downhill scoring and passing chances for the nine-time All-Star but also opened up change-of-pace chances and opportunities to get clean, on-the-move jumpers.

Joel Embiid hits his first key checkpoint

Every aspect of Embiid's availability through 25 games of this season has been methodically considered, with his left knee in mind. From Embiid's most encouraging moments to when an unexpected right knee issue appeared and forced him into a nine-game absence, there had been one constant through 24 Sixers games: Every time Embiid played in a game, it was padded by multiple off days. On Sunday, the team broke that trend.

Not even 48 hours after he scored 39 points against the Indiana Pacers on Friday – it was Embiid's best and most encouraging performance in well over a year – the former NBA MVP was upgraded from questionable to available in Atlanta. It is something Embiid said on Friday night that he would contend to the team's medical staff was worth doing, and perhaps it was the right time to see how Embiid handles two appearances in three days; the Sixers had a four-day break before this pair of games and have another one beginning on Monday.

It was certainly not evident in Embiid's play that he had as little rest as he has had in any game this season. While he remained noticeably slow for a typical NBA player, he actually moved a whole lot better than expected given the low standards he has set on that front.

Embiid had a few of his most powerful and forceful drives of the season, and building off a critical basket on the offensive glass to put Friday's game away, he had far and away his most active game of the season as a rebounder. On both ends of the floor Embiid played with considerably more intent trying to rebound misses, and while his limited mobility hinders his ability to get to every misfire, he is big and strong enough that just decent effort gets the job done.

While Embiid oversimplifies nearly every noteworthy performance – good or bad – into whether or not jumpers went in, this felt like a game when Embiid's shooting line was actually not reflective of the shots he was taking. More importantly, though, just about every time Embiid had the ball inside the arc he was forcing the Hawks into scramble mode. It led to plenty of good looks for the Sixers:

With Maxey out and the Sixers in need of players that could leverage their skills to create advantageous offensive circumstances, Atlanta's aggressive strategy defending Embiid played right into their hands in some respects. Embiid having a stronger shooting night would have made it more pronounced.

VJ Edgecombe has another tremendous moment

It had been nearly a month since Edgecombe scored 20 points in a game before he easily surpassed that mark in the third quarter on Friday after a 14-point outburst in the opening frame. After a pedestrian first half on Sunday, Edgecombe erupted in the third quarter, scoring 17 points – including a dozen in just the final three minutes and change of the quarter. That torrid run came during a critical stretch, when the Sixers had to rest both George and Embiid. 

The Sixers outscored Atlanta by six points in the final four minutes and 30 seconds of the third quarter after George and Embiid hit the bench together, and it was the rookie Edgecombe whose contributions were necessary to pull it off. Edgecombe's three-point shooting has been considerably better than what anybody expected in his first NBA season; some long-range connections powered his scoring in this one. Edgecombe acknowledged on Friday night that some early three-point shots can potentially open up the driving lanes he likes to punch.

Odds and ends

Some additional notes:

• After a full preseason of speculation about Embiid and Bona sharing the floor in double-big lineups, it turned out to be Andre Drummond playing alongside Embiid first. The Sixers' two veteran centers teamed up midway through the second quarter, with Nurse desperate for ways to fill minutes due to the team's noteworthy absences and Edwards' continued massive struggles. Embiid and Drummond spent exactly two minutes on the court together and the Sixers outscored Atlanta by one point.

• One of the other signs of Nurse's desperation: The extremely limited 39-year-old Kyle Lowry made one of his rare rotation cameos in the second quarter, playing the final eight minutes and change of the second quarter. After Edwards missed four consecutive shots in a short span, it was difficult to justify playing the hometown kid, though Nurse did try it again in the second half because, with Kelly Oubre Jr. and Trendon Watford out, someone had to play at a forward spot.

• As brutal as Edwards was in this one, McCain also struggled enormously. He has taken multiple significant steps back since his 20-point showing in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. Nurse constantly fields questions about why the 21-year-old does not play more, but McCain has not done enough to prove he can help this team win on a consistent basis.

Up next: The Sixers will now enjoy their second four-day layoff. They return to action at Madison Square Garden on Friday in their first matchup of the regular season against the New York Knicks.