LOS ANGELES -- The Philadelphia 76ers are still trying to work Paul George into things following the bone bruise in his left knee that he suffered in the preseason back on Oct. 14. George missed the final two games of the exhibition schedule and the first five games of the regular season.
Therefore, the Sixers are trying to work him in slowly and try not to push him too much at this stage of the season. Coach Nick Nurse revealed on Friday before a 116-106 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers that George will be on a minutes restriction of somewhere between 25 and 30 minutes.
George played 25 minutes and had nine points on 4-for-13 shooting with eight assists and four rebounds. He will look to work his way back into things, but he knows he needs to be patient and try to work his way back into things for Philadelphia in terms of the minutes.
"They're going up as the games go," George said. "They're going up. I won't be at probably normal minutes for another couple games, but they're going up."
George can take solace in the fact that he did have zero turnovers after committing 10 total in his first two games in a Sixers uniform. His playmaking was on point as he got others involved on the offensive end, but Philadelphia needs him to score the basketball in this situation with Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid out.
"I mean, I think, especially with Reese going out, and just how teams are gonna guard me, I know it's gonna be a lot of loading up and traps and blitzes, and that type of stuff so tonight was the best I felt with just being myself," George explained. "I think I felt back to normal in terms of rhythm. I know shots didn't go down, but I'm not really too concerned with that."
In order for the Sixers to stay in games at the moment, George has to be a scorer despite his current minutes restriction. He has got to have an impact as a bucket-getter to lead this team to wins and stay afloat despite their current predicament.
"Now, I can start to take the next step of putting it all together," George added. "Being back to isolation scoring, hitting big shots, and getting to my spots so I'm just trying to put it all together while being under a minutes restrictions under six minutes spurts. It's challenging when you get going and you get subbed out, and try to find it again. So just trying to put it all together."
The Sixers will return home to host the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday looking to put a halt to this current 5-game losing skid.