The Philadelphia 76ers kick off the second half of the season on Thursday night with a tough home matchup against the Boston Celtics. The first time these two teams met in December, the Sixers secured a key 118-114 victory, and they’ll look to replicate that success against the defending champions.
It has been a difficult season for Philadelphia, a team that entered the year with championship aspirations but has been plagued by injuries. Joel Embiid has been sidelined for much of the season, while Paul George continues to battle a pinky injury, also telling reporters before the All-Star break that a groin issue has bothered him.
Despite Philadelphia’s two stars missing a lot of time this season, the Sixers’ latest injury report for Thursday’s game does not include Embiid. As for George, the team announced he is available, but with one specification.
Per the team, George will be wearing a left finger split since he is still dealing with lingering issues in his left hand.
Head coach Nick Nurse provided an update on George’s condition after Wednesday’s practice (via Adam Aaronson).
“He was good today,” Nurse told reporters. “I thought much, much better today. Yesterday, he really competed really hard, but I didn’t see a great flow or rhythm. Today, he looked a lot better. So staying hopeful there. He says it’s starting to feel much better than it did early on when he was playing, and the weeks are ticking by. So hopefully, I don’t know, we’re probably less than three weeks away from that thing coming off. But he looked good today.”
George also discussed playing through the injury recently.
“It’s tough,” George said (via PhillyVoice, h/t NBA Central). “The pain pretty much went down, but little things like ball-handling, catching it, going left at moments. Like there’s a couple plays tonight where it bobbled a bit because I got to essentially play like this all game [displays inability to move left pinky]. So, you know, it’s frustrating, but it is what it is.”
Philadelphia hopes to get George back to full strength as they push for a playoff spot. The nine-time All-Star was brought in during the offseason to bolster the Sixers’ championship hopes, but he has endured a challenging year. He is currently averaging 16.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game—his lowest scoring season since his injury-shortened 2014-15 campaign.
George is coming off a disappointing two-point performance against the Brooklyn Nets and will look to bounce back against Boston. The Celtics, on the other hand, will hope to extend their three-game streak against the struggling 76ers.
