April 09, 2026
It is difficult to recall many days in the recent history of the Sixers as rough as Thursday, April 9.
Disaster had ensued before the Sixers could even get on the floor for their most important game of the year. Joel Embiid was downgraded from available to out with an illness, then the Sixers announced that he was immediately undergoing an appendectomy. Embiid's season is very much in jeopardy.
Only after that news did the Sixers do battle against the red-hot Rockets. They oddly wore red jerseys in Houston for the third year in a row, but it did not earn them enough of the momentum that has carried the Rockets of late. They lost, 113-102. It quite possibly ends their chances of avoiding the Play-In Tournament.
After a brief spurt of competitive play to open the game, the Rockets routed the Sixers for two-plus quarters. In the fourth quarter, the Sixers pulled off an impressive, spirited push, with a lineup including four reserves scoring 16 unanswered points, cutting a 24-point lead down to seven and forcing the Rockets to take control. Unfortunately for the Sixers, Houston eventually did just that. The Sixers got the lead down to five points inside of the 90-second mark before Kevin Durant hit a back-breaking triple to vanquish what was a genuinely terrific comeback effort.
Takeaways from the Sixers' horrible day, which extends beyond what happened on the court in Houston and Embiid's shocking diagnosis:
While he was hesitant to acknowledge it – perhaps it felt too good to be true; maybe it was simple gamesmanship – Sixers head coach Nick Nurse had more or less figured out his optimal substitution patterns since Embiid and George returned from long-term absences back on March 25.
Nurse had it all built around two key pairings – Tyrese Maxey and Embiid, plus VJ Edgecombe and Paul George. While the two-time All-Star and the former NBA MVP could lean on their lethal two-man game sharing the floor more often and benefit from each other's presences, the 20-year-old rookie and the nine-time All-Star could lead bench units and spend more time operating with the ball in their hands.
Now, Nurse is desperately searching for answers without Embiid. He tried to keep Edgecombe and George mostly tied together on Thursday, with Maxey anchoring lineups alongside Kelly Oubre Jr. and Quentin Grimes. Oubre might have been the best player on the floor in the first quarter, and Grimes had a decent night himself, too. But that plan was precarious at best and quickly fell apart.
What does not help matters: ever since taking a hit to his injured right finger last week, Maxey has been noticeably less aggressive with the ball and considerably more prone to turnovers and bad passes. He finally found something in the middle of this game to shake off a brutal start; the Sixers will hope that he can get back into a groove.
This version of Maxey is still not the same one that was dominant early in the season. George has largely been brilliant since returning from his 25-game suspension, but without Embiid, he and a limited Maxey do not have enough to get this offense humming to the degree it will need to do beat high-level competition (the Sixers have struggled to do that even with Embiid available).
The Sixers struggled mightily with ball security all night long, and after opening the game with about nine minutes of energetic basketball, the entire operation crumbled. Offensively, it was mostly a disaster until Maxey got hot from beyond the arc when the game had already gotten somewhat out of hand.
From bad first-half turnovers to an underwhelming performance from George to far too many undermanned lineups, the Sixers just did not have enough to keep up with Durant and the Rockets, who were also able to capitalize on the Sixers' questionable interior defense.
About an hour before the Sixers tipped off against the Rockets, the Toronto Raptors began a critical home game against the Miami Heat. Toronto won, 128-114, and it all but rules out the Sixers' chances of avoiding the NBA Play-In Tournament. It will even be an uphill battle for the Sixers to become the No. 7 overall seed now, too.
The most likely outcome after Thursday's slate: the Sixers finishing as the No. 8 seed and traveling to Orlando to face the No. 7 seed Magic. The winner of that game would play a seven-game series against the Boston Celtics, and the loser would face the winner of a game between the Charlotte Hornets and Heat, with the right to face the Detroit Pistons in a seven-game series on the line.
A loss like the one the Sixers suffered on Thursday is hardly indefensible. Even beyond the strict on-court disadvantage they experienced in terms of manpower, there had to be an emotional impact of the sudden Embiid news from earlier in the day. This team, though, is one that has coughed up a brutal number of games over the course of the season. Every team has a bad loss here and there, but the Sixers' particularly noteworthy tendency to bungle winnable games and turn them into losses will be what likely forces them into the NBA Play-In Tournament.
Some additional notes:
• Adem Bona started over Andre Drummond, and perhaps his history with Rockets star Alperen Şengün played a part in that. If anyone knows Şengün well, it is Bona; the two have been playing with and against each other since they were teenagers. Bona and Şengün were teammates on a Turkish team that went to the final game of EuroBasket last summer.
• With Embiid out for the foreseeable future, it feels safe to assume that Oubre will be a permanent starter and Dominick Barlow will officially come off the bench. The Sixers need more offensive punch without Embiid, and Barlow's value is in many ways tied to Embiid's gravity.
• Jabari Walker was a rotation mainstay for the majority of the season, but fell out of the mix for quite a while – his longest stint without being part of the rotation as a member of the Sixers. Asked before the Sixers' road trip if the team's continued struggles on the defensive glass made him consider going back to Walker, Nurse did not provide an enthusiastic response. But, looking for a jolt of energy midway through the second quarter, Nurse summoned Walker. Including the 23-year-old in the rotation would give Nurse nine players to lean on without Embiid.
• The lineup that made this a respectable loss for the Sixers in the fourth quarter: Edgecombe, Grimes, Justin Edwards, Barlow and Drummond. Edwards was a late entrant into the rotation, playing over Walker in the second half. This unit played with tremendous effort, and while it did benefit from some Rockets misses its defensive cohesion stood out. In 10 minutes and change before Nurse brought Maxey back into the game to replace Edwards – his last-ditch effort – that Sixers lineup outscored the Rockets, 25-11.
• Midway through the first quarter, the Sixers provided another update on Embiid, saying his appendectomy was successful.
Up next: The Sixers' final back-to-back of the season will conclude on Friday night, as they will travel to Indiana to face a Pacers team looking to secure the best possible odds of keeping its top-four protected first-round pick.
