The Minnesota Timberwolves and 76ers could be without star players on Friday night when the teams meet in Philadelphia for an important late-season clash.
Philadelphia (42-34) sits in sixth place in the Eastern Conference playoff race, although there isn’t much separation between fifth and 10th place.
Minnesota (46-30) is sixth in the West, with an eye on climbing higher with the regular season winding down.
The 76ers likely will be without Joel Embiid (illness) on Friday, while the Timberwolves again could be without Anthony Edwards (illness/knee).
Embiid missed Philadelphia’s most recent game — a 153-131 win over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday. He is averaging 26.9 points and 7.4 rebounds this season but has been limited to 36 games for a variety of reasons.
Philadelphia’s Paul George has played in just 31 games — mostly due to a 25-game suspension for taking a banned substance — but he has returned in impressive fashion. In his fourth game since coming back from the suspension, George scored a season-high 39 points against Washington, going 15-for-22 from the field in a crisp overall performance.
“Yeah, that time off,” George started. “That time off was the time I needed for my body. That’s been really what unlocked me to kind of play free and play aggressive.”
Tyrese Maxey added 28 points, while VJ Edgecombe chipped in with 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting to go with 10 assists. Edgecombe on Thursday was named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for March.
“We know we can score the ball,” Maxey said. “We got a lot of guys that can get 20. A lot of guys that get 20. Guys off the bench that can get 20, get 30.”
Minnesota, meanwhile, is on a three-game road trip that began with a 124-94 win over Dallas on Monday.
Edwards, who is averaging 29.3 points a game, scored 17 in that contest after missing the previous six games with a knee injury. However, he was deemed unable to play Thursday in Detroit, where the Timberwolves lost to the East-leading Pistons, 113-108.
“We’ve been playing with good pace. I think we’ve been moving the ball well,” said Minnesota coach Chris Finch, referencing the team’s recent offensive outputs without Edwards, not to mention the absence of Jaden McDaniels (knee injury).
“We don’t have a lot of guys who can punch the gaps and get into the paint — maybe that’s not their game — but we’ve missed some really good looks, too,” Finch added.
Julius Randle led the Timberwolves with 27 points against Detroit, while Naz Reid and Ayo Dosunmu added 19 apiece. Terrence Shannon Jr. notched 10 off the bench — his highest-scoring game since March 10.
“Everyone’s role is going to be situational,” Finch said. “I thought it was more of a game (where we could feature Shannon).”
In the only other matchup between the teams this season, the Sixers won 135-108 at Minnesota on Feb. 22 as Maxey registered 39 points and eight assists.
“I just thought (Maxey) was so assertive tonight in the standpoint of he was seeing a lot of similar stuff that he’s been seeing and he was just attacking what they were doing immediately, instead of sometimes,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said that night.
