Nurse’s orders: Sixers scramble for cure during much-needed All-Star break

While this is a much-needed down week for many in the NBA, sometimes there is no rest for the weary. 

Consider Sixers' coach Nick Nurse in that group, as he is taking this week away from games to better figure out his group, improve at both ends of the floor and hopefully find a rotation with which he is comfortable. Of course, that's not so easy to do when one of your starters won't be back until the final 10 games of the season. But the suspension of Paul George isn't the only obstacle facing the coach of a 30-24 team, currently sitting in the sixth spot in the Eastern Conference.

There needs to be some backcourt help for starters Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe as well as reserve Quentin Grimes. Nurse has been relying a bit on Trendon Watford to handle the ball and probably will need to do that more unless someone else is added in the buyout market. Or maybe Nurse believes that with just 28 games remaining before the playoffs, that he can ride 35-40 minutes a night from his starters and trust that Grimes will find his explosiveness off the bench that was a given at the beginning of the season.

"I think just some variety, continue to add and tinker, just some more variety to the offense," said Nurse of one of his priorities to work on during the break. "That would be another thing. And then we just got to be able to execute schemes."

Variety is certainly a luxury at the offensive end when Joel Embiid is in the lineup, and absolute necessity when he isn't. Teams aren't hiding the fact that doubling Maxey when the team is Embiid-less and making others beat them is the plan. That means the likes of Edgecombe, Kelly Oubre, Jr., Grimes and others need to pick up some of the slack.

On the defensive side, similar problems arise with and without Embiid. When he is available, Nurse can determine between Andre Drummond and Adem Bona who is going to pick up the majority of the backup minutes. If rebounding is needed against a bigger team, then Drummond will probably get the call. If it's a team that likes to spread out the Sixers more, then the more mobile Bona most likely is the choice.

It has been at least 2-3 years since I have seen Joel Embiid be able to move like this on the perimeter

Don’t take this for granted it’s really impressive Embiid’s mobility has returned to this level pic.twitter.com/OgCbw8kstN

— Sean Barnard (@Sean_Barnard1) February 6, 2026

When Embiid is out, however, this becomes a pretty big problem. 

Drummond has not played in 10 of the past 17 games, so counting on him for big minutes when Embiid is out is somewhat problematic. And Bona hasn't helped much. Here's an example. In the final game before the break against the New York Knicks, Nurse decided to start Bona because of the Knicks' spread offense. Early in the game, Bona got pulled out from the basket and had no awareness of what was going on behind him and the team got burned for three easy backdoor layups. He had two fouls in the first seven minutes of the game and picked up a dumb third on a reach-in while in the backcourt. That appeared to bring headshakes from some on the bench, and rightfully so. As exciting as he is to watch sometimes with his blocks and dunks, the maddening play from him often overrides the positives.

"For this time of the year, I'm pretty happy with some of the schemes that we've got in (place) defensively that we can go to," said Nurse. "I think we can guard. We've got a smaller version of a man-to-man defense that we've got that's pretty good. We've got our blitzing package working pretty good again. Certain lineups, our switching lineups have been pretty decent. Just being able to polish all those things up. We're going to need a variety of things as you go forward and as these games become more meaningful. I'd say those three things (are the point of emphasis during the break). 

"We've certainly played a lot of really good basketball. That's one thing that I want to emphasize for sure. I don't want one poor performance (the 138-89 blowout to the Knicks) to overshadow the work these guys have done and how hard they've played and a lot of good things they've done. One area we work on every day but we'll continue to work on is rebounding. I think defensive rebounding is a huge factor for us. I think we really need to be able to control that or survive that a little bit, especially against some of the bigger teams."

When you consider they've played 23 games without Embiid, another 27 without George with at least 18 more to come and a trade of Jared McCain that did nothing to help the team this season, you can sort of understand Nurse's optimism. And you can really understand the work he feels is needed during these off days.