After taxing first-round series, 76ers looked ‘tired’ in Game 1 loss vs. Knicks

“It’s a game of adjustments,” George said. “We’ll make adjustments. See where we need to get better at.”

The lone benefit from a Game 1 blowout was Nurse being able to pull his starters well before the final buzzer sounded. With the team hovering around a 30-point deficit, which would eventually grow to 40, there was no need to keep in key players that would again be needed to start in Wednesday’s Game 2.

The rest was especially needed for Embiid, who entered Game 1 as probable with a right hip contusion. Embiid also seemed hurt after Mikal Bridges made hard contact running through a screen minutes before halftime. Embiid, who underwent emergency appendectomy surgery last month, stayed in the game after bending over in pain near halfcourt following the blow.

He later checked out of the game for the final time at the 6:03 mark of the third quarter with his team down 29.

Nurse said postgame that he pulled the star with the game out of hand and not because of any injury reason.

The series now shifts to Game 2 with a chance for the 76ers to steal home-court advantage before returning home for Game 3 at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

“If we lose by seven or 70 it doesn’t really matter,” Tyrese Maxey said. “They won one game and we lost one game. Like [Paul George] said we gonna make some adjustments and we’ll be ready for Game 2. Game 1 doesn’t carry over to Game 2.

“We’ll be ready to play.”