{"id":131688,"date":"2025-03-30T16:44:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T20:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=131688"},"modified":"2025-03-30T16:44:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T20:44:32","slug":"nick-nurse-frustrations-76ers-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/30\/nick-nurse-frustrations-76ers-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Nurse Expresses Frustrations On 76ers Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let it first be said that Nick Nurse is a solid NBA coach. Conversely, this season with the\u00a0<\/span>Philadelphia 76ers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0has turned out to be nothing close to his playoff-contending days while coaching the\u00a0<\/span>Toronto Raptors<\/span><\/a>. After signing\u00a0<\/span>Paul George<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the 2024 offseason, the 76ers were to be one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference, contending for a conference title and a league title. Before the regular season even began, Philadelphia was already stuck deep in the mud. Injuries eventually turned into their personal plague, and that injury bug, as Nurse defines it, never went away. Suffice it to say that Nurse, a championship-winning coach not too long ago, experienced the season from hell.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nick Nurse Expresses Frustrations On 76ers Season<\/h2>\n

Philadelphia 76ers HC Nick Nurse Points to Injuries and Small Doses of Momentum As Season Killers<\/h3>\n

Joel Embiid<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and George haven’t played for multiple weeks now, with the Sixers front office deciding to ice each player in hopes of both players’ readiness by the start of next season. Embiid walked into the season limping, and George also suffered his bouts with injuries early and then again late. The young bright spot in Philadelphia,\u00a0<\/span>Tyrese Maxey<\/span><\/a>, was also sidelined for a time. It’s astonishing how injuries have so harshly affected the NBA this year. For some teams, it<\/span>catapulted them from expected playoff contenders to conference basement dwellers. A perfect example is the New Orleans Pelicans, and the same can be said for the Sixers.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is irrational and unfair to say that Philly’s season results this year fall on Nurse’s shoulders. That said, his job is likely in jeopardy, and his time with the 76ers is eight games away from being over. Following a 118-95 loss to the\u00a0<\/span>Miami Heat<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Saturday,\u00a0<\/span>Nurse spoke about the trials and tribulations of this year<\/span><\/a>, pointing to injuries as the major cause of the fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s not anywhere near where we had hoped it would be when we set out this summer and this fall, that\u2019s for sure\u201d <\/em>Nurse said. \u201cThat\u2019s the only thing you can say, it was a super struggle. You know, most of the way I think there was only a couple times of some momentum. Right? December, and there was another I think four or five-game winning streak in there, too, where you were always holding out hope that the team was playing better and getting some wins and hopefully get some players back.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt just didn\u2019t seem like the injury bug would ever leave us.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>It just seemed like every time we\u2019d have a good game it would cost us a player or two for the next one. We never could build any momentum.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Another Coaching Job Awaits, But Philly Won’t Be One<\/h3>\n

Again, the results of this season can hardly be all on Nurse. At least in the case of Embiid, the blame should rest on the front office. Now only did they allow him to play in the Summer Olympics, but they created a shady smoke screen concerning Embiid’s injury and availability when the regular season began. Is there more that Nurse could have done to prepare the players he had available to him better? Yes, most likely, but still, without Embiid, the Sixers had no real shot.<\/p>\n

So, for Nurse, his exit will almost assuredly occur shortly after the regular season closes. That isn’t the worst-case scenario for him, though. Again, he is a solid coach and knows how to lead a team. Another opportunity will show its face, and Nurse should be a likely candidate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Bill Streicher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let it first be said that Nick Nurse is a solid NBA coach. Conversely, this season with the\u00a0Philadelphia 76ers\u00a0has turned out to be nothing close to his playoff-contending days while coaching the\u00a0Toronto Raptors. After signing\u00a0Paul George\u00a0in the 2024 offseason, the 76ers were to be one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference, contending for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":131689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1608,62],"tags":[267,50,2478],"class_list":["post-131688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-76ers","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-joel-embiid","tag-paul-george","tag-tyrese-maxey"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131694,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131688\/revisions\/131694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}