Sixers’ Paul George says no time for ‘Plan B’ vs. Magic in play-in

The Sixers aren’t looking at this like a two-chance scenario. Not even close.

Philadelphia enters Wednesday’s play-in matchup with the Magic as the No. 7 seed, meaning it has two opportunities to advance. But inside the locker room, there’s only one way to approach it.

Paul George, 76ers, Sixers, NBA, Nets — File photo

Apparently, that approach would be aggressively.

“We’ve got a great opportunity to lock in a playoff seed here on our floor,” Paul George said, via Gina Mizell of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It don’t get no better than that in this situation. So we should look at it as ‘win or go home.’ We shouldn’t be looking at a Plan B or an Option B.”

In other words, no safety net.

“… It’s the mentality we need to have now,” George added. “Wednesday is too late. We need to have that mentality now.”

Philadelphia earned the home game after Orlando’s loss Sunday and holds the tiebreaker between the two teams, but coach Nick Nurse isn’t interested in margins.

“We’ve got a lot of ceiling to go yet,” Nurse said. “So hopefully, we get to play a bunch of games and keep improving.”

That climb will have to come without Joel Embiid, who remains sidelined following an emergency appendectomy.

“That’s the one thing that we can kind of check off,” Andre Drummond said. “We know that he won’t be available for a little bit. So now we have to focus on what we can do and who we do have.”

The matchup itself, of course, won’t be easy.

“Physical team. Big wings and aggressive guards,” Nurse said of Orlando. “They’ve been one of many teams… that hasn’t been very healthy this year, so it’s gonna be a tough game.”