The Sixers have lost six consecutive games including last Wednesday's defeat in Washington, 106-93, to the Wizards. The two teams meet tonight at the Wells Fargo Center in the fourth and final meeting of the year. The Wizards have won two of the previous three contests.
The Wizards are fifth in the Eastern Conference standings, but they are only one game back of Toronto for fourth. The team that finishes fourth will have home-court advantage in the first round.
Brett Brown has everyone available tonight. Meanwhile, the Wizards will rest John Wall. Nene will not play either, but Paul Pierce will.
However, it's the news that Joel Embiid played two-on-two yesterday for the first time that has people excited for what the future could look like when he joins the lineup.
But if people were hoping to see Noel and Joel side by side in the summer league, that is not going to happen.
"I don't think I am going to play him [Noel] in the summer league," Brown said. "I don't feel the need to do that. I think he will come and practice with the team. I think there is logic where you say, 'Shoot there are opportunities for he and Joel to play together,' but I think it sounds more glamorous than it actually is. I don't see that as a must."
The plan is to have Embiid play on the Sixers' summer league team, but he must take some steps before that is definite.
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"Three-on-three," Brown said when asked what Embiid's next step is. "And I think that will take place soon, in the next week and a half we can progress there. Even that two-on-two sounds a lot better than it is. It is with people like Curtis Sumpter, who was a really good player at Villanova and in the NBA, but he is now my eleventh assistant.
"He is great banging people, but to say two-on-two is a little misleading. To play with high-quality players like his teammates is probably eight to ten days away. The bottom line is he is moving in the direction where we are ready to make a final statement on the summer league."