Sixers Injury Report vs Celtics: What to Expect in Game 1

When Game 1 of the Sixers' first-round series against the Boston Celtics tips off on Sunday afternoon, Joel Embiid will not be available as he recovers from appendectomy surgery.

He is the only Sixer unavailable for Game 1.

If the Play-In game was any indicator, Nick Nurse will likely tap Tyrese Maxey, V.J. Edgecombe, Kelly Oubre Jr., Paul George and Adem Bona as starters for the opening game of the series.

That group has logged just 67 possessions as counted by Cleaning The Glass. But Play-In statistics do not count, so that number doesn't totally capture what that group has shown together.

Nurse did close the game with Andre Drummond on the floor. And Drummond had a superb Play-In game. But the four other regular starters and Drummond have played nearly as few minutes as the lineup with Bona has, so there's not much history directing the Sixers in any direction.

It is worth considering that Bona may be a better player at this point in time, but he may be best for the Sixers in short stints off the bench. Not everybody can be an effective 30-minute player.

Nick Nurse expanding his rotation slightly may also be worth consideration. The Sixers' best lineup against the Celtics this season consisted of Maxey, Edgecombe, Justin Edwards, Oubre and Drummond. That group outscored the Celtics by 16 points in 12 minutes of action across two games, per NBA.com.

It is discouraging, and probably indicative of the roller coaster of availability the Sixers have had this season, that the only other lineup—Maxey, Edgecombe, Quentin Grimes, Dominick Barlow and Bona—to outscore the Celtics by double digits played just seven minutes together.

The Celtics, meanwhile, had no injuries to report heading into Sunday.

With Joe Mazzulla liking the spark super sixth man Payton Pritchard brings off the bench, he went toward lineups that maximized shooting in Jayson Tatum's absence. He often went with standout second-year player Baylor Scheierman and Sam Hauser next to Neemias Queta, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White.

With Tatum obviously back, Mazzulla has rolled out the two Jays, White, Hauser and Queta as his go-to lineup.

That group outscored opponents by 7.5 points per 100 possessions in 320 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass.

The offense ranked on the 79th percentile, but the defense was slightly better. What figures to prove especially disruptive to the Sixers are Boston's rebounding rates with that group. That unit rebounds almost 31% of its own misses on offenses, a pretty good number. But they allow opponents to rebound just 19.5% of their own misses, an unrivaled number.

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