After a rough outing at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks on Tuesday, the 76ers will return to the Wells Fargo Center to take on the Detroit Pistons tonight in this early season contest.
Joel Embiid has been playing through a sore knee that he re-aggravated on opening night against the Pelicans, so his status will probably be up in the air. It is also believed that Shake Milton is inching closer towards making his season debut shortly as he continues to rehab from an ankle injury. For Detroit, they will be without the #1 overall selection in this year's draft in Cade Cunningham (ankle) and fellow rookie Isaiah Livers (foot). The former Sixer Jerami Grant is also still a game-time decision (elbow).
At 0-3, the Pistons will enter play as the league's last remaining team without a victory in the early going. The 76ers will be in need of a bounce back performance facing an opposing defense much more lenient than that of the Tom Thibodeau-led Knicks squad. Outside of a dreadful second quarter where Philadelphia was outscored 39-16, I thought their showing wasn't too bad considering the Knicks multi-faceted offensive attack and being red hot from beyond the arc (In first half, Knicks: 10/16, Sixers: 2/15). Oh well. Not much you can do to slow down a team that good defensively when they're shooting the ball that well.
The elephant in the room still looms large, and the Sixers glaring lack of capable ball handlers and passers is debilitating until the Ben Simmons situation is resolved one way or another. And if they are also without Embiid (which is the right course of action for an October 28th game against the Detroit Pistons), the team will really have to find other players to provide them with offense.