On the second night of back-to-back games, the Philadelphia 76ers stormed back against the Memphis Grizzlies at home to secure a victory. The story initially revolved around the many Sixers who missed the game due to injury, but the team would not be denied, storming back for the win.
VJ Edgecombe impressed with 21 points in his return from injury, but Kelly Oubre and Cam Payne enjoyed career nights, leading the Sixers to a much-needed win.
Missing the previous three games with a lumbar contusion, Edgecombe was a welcome sight for Sixers fans Tuesday night. Edgecombe overcame a slow start to the game with an increasingly impressive push in the following three quarters. Scoring seven in the second, eight in the third and helping to spark the fourth quarter push, once Edgecombe shook off the rust, he picked up right where his impressive rookie season left off.
The Sixers will continue to rely heavily on Edgecombe moving forward after they received word today that All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey will miss “approximately three weeks” after further testing revealed a tendon injury in his pinkie finger.
Against the Utah Jazz, Nick Nurse made a necessary change, benching veteran center Andre Drummond for Adem Bona. In Tuesday’s game against the Grizzlies, Nurse made a second change, moving Drummond out of the rotation and turning to a combination of Jabari Walker and Dominick Barlow to play the backup minutes at the five.
Drummond’s play has declined as the season has trudged on, and his time on the court has gradually become more and more of an issue. Recognizing the spark added by Walker and Barlow, Nurse made the switch, and the result was a clear positive even early on.
It’s worth noting the change came against the shorthanded and undersized Memphis Grizzlies, so this is not guaranteed to be the standard moving forward, but Nurse has attempted the adjustment and watched it succeed, so there’s a strong chance it’s not the last we’ve seen of these lineups.
Payne has struggled all season to get back into NBA form. Prior to signing with Philadelphia, he was playing overseas with Partizan Mozzart Bet in the Serbian league, joining them only in late December.
Through his first ten games with the Sixers this season, Payne averaged just 4.4 points, shooting 29.3 percent from the floor and 20.5 percent from three. Tuesday night, he was fully in his bag.
Payne made a career-best eight threes on eight attempts, the first player in franchise history to make that many without a miss and scored a career-high 32 points with ten assists. Payne became the first Sixer to score 30-plus off the bench this season, and the first player in franchise history to rack up 30-plus points and 10-plus assists in a single game as a reserve.
The Sixers sorely needed this performance out of Payne, especially in the wake of the Maxey injury update. This level of performance cannot be expected to be the norm, but it’s a massive encouragement to see that he still has this high-end offensive ability at this point in his career.
The team will travel up to Detroit for a matchup against the Eastern Conference-leading Detroit Pistons. They will face quite the challenge as they will once again be without Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and Paul George. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 12.
Unless otherwise stated, all stats included in this article are via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass, Basketball Reference or Team Rankings. All salary information via Spotrac.
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