After many days off over the last two weeks, the Sixers are finally about to return to regular play to close out 2024 and start the new year. You will meet Charlotte at the beginning of a back-to-back concert. Then they make a pit stop in Cleveland on Saturday night before returning home to face the Spurs on Monday. They close out 2024 and begin 2025 with a six-game road trip that begins on Christmas Day in Boston and runs through the first weekend of January.

Having just defeated the Hornets on Monday night, there will be one last chance to enjoy Charlotte on Friday night when the Sixers take on the Hornets for the fourth and final time this season. They won the first three meetings and Monday’s performance was particularly notable due to strong performances from Tyrese Maxey and Paul George.

With three straight days off after Monday, Nick Nurse has been asked questions about the possibility of George playing both Friday night against Charlotte and Saturday night at Cleveland. Nurse didn’t commit to having George available for either game, meaning how Friday night goes and George’s reaction on Saturday will be the deciding factors in George’s play against the Cavaliers.

What’s interesting about the way Nurse and the team are approaching this back-to-back is that it seems like George will be at almost full strength on Friday. George set a season high with 37 minutes played on Dec. 3 in Charlotte and surpassed that number again on Monday in the Queen City with 40 minutes played. The December 3 game against the Hornets was the first consecutive game, and George did not play on December 4, which ultimately resulted in a narrow loss to Orlando.

It’s more coincidence than anything that George logged so many minutes against the Hornets. The strategy of Nurse and the rest of the coaching staff still deserves close scrutiny. Didn’t they learn anything from the encounter earlier this month? Had George been available on December 4th against the Magic, that 106-102 loss could have easily been a win. If the Sixers want to turn their season around, they need to get hot and stay hot, which means they also need to get some wins against big opponents, like Cleveland on Saturday. If you have to use George on Friday to ensure he’s fully available against the Cavs, by all means do so.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at how Friday night’s game goes. Maybe the Sixers crush the Hornets and reduce George’s minutes in the second half, and the veteran winger will also play on Saturday. Maybe the plan from the start was to use George lightly regardless of the game script, and he ends up somewhere in the 25-30 minute range and is available to Cleveland. But would anyone be surprised if the Sixers won Friday’s game by a score of 5-10, George played 35 minutes and then was out Saturday night and Cleveland beat the Sixers by double digits?

It’s only mid-December, but in many ways it feels like it’s already mid-March. This season has been understandably disgusting for fans and it’s not even a third over yet. Injuries and usage updates are essentially a regular occurrence for every game. We also got some “positive” news from Joel Embiid this week, suggesting the big man may be ahead of schedule in his recovery from his sinus fracture. Caleb Martin practiced on Thursday but will miss Friday. If you’ve given up keeping track of who’s healthy and who’s not, I don’t blame you. It looks like George, who at times wasn’t even listed on the injury report, will be in and out of the lineup this season.