Sixers wrap up Abu Dhabi trip with one more showdown with Knicks

The Sixers and Knicks face off one more time abroad.

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Preseason action continues overseas for Philadelphia as they are set to square off again with the New York Knicks Saturday morning in Abu Dhabi. The Sixers will aim to shoot better than they did in their 99-84 loss in the preseason opener where they finished 3-of-36 from three-point range.

Teams aren’t required to submit an injury report for the preseason, but it feels like a pretty safe bet to say that Joel Embiid will once again not

be suiting up for this one, along with Paul George and Jared McCain, all of whom are recovering from offseason surgeries. Quentin Grimes also won’t be available as he didn’t make the trip. For New York, the status of Josh Hart will be worth monitoring. He was ejected for tossing the ball into the crowd after suffering an injury in Thursday’s game.

VJ Edgecombe will be looking to build off his 14-point performance in his debut. In 30 minutes of action, the rookie got a lot of on-ball opportunities to initiate the offense. The majority of these opportunities came with Tyrese Maxey on the bench but he was the focal point with Maxey on the floor sometimes as well. Edgecombe also finished with three assists and one turnover

It will be interesting to see if Nick Nurse changes up the starting lineup a bit to see different looks, or if he continues to play the guys he’s been impressed with. Dominick Barlow, who’s on a two-way deal, has earned high praise from Nurse early in training camp and got the start in the opener Thursday. In nearly 30 minutes he pulled down 10 rebounds and a steal as well as putting up six points on 2-of-5 shooting.

The center rotation behind Embiid also sounds like something that is in flux according to Nurse. Adem Bona got the start and the bulk of the minutes on Thursday. It doesn’t seem like Andre Drummond is primed for many more minutes though — he had just two points, two fouls and three boards in eight minutes on Thursday. Nurse has also alluded to the potential of playing Jabari Walker at the five, though that is not a look he has gone to yet. There was usually another big sharing the floor with Walker in the 20 minutes he played on Thursday.

The last story worth tracking is whether Justin Edwards can bounce back or not. After a standout rookie season, Edwards had a really rough summer league, which is easy to chalk up to the weirdness and chaos that is summer league. His 0-of-8 performance along with three turnovers didn’t do a ton of reassuring. His line on Thursday could just be the result of shooting variance — seven of this eight field goal attempts were three-pointers — but Edwards has racked up a lot of shaky performances in a row now, even if none of those games count for anything.