PHILADELPHIA — By the standards set by the pregame lineup announcements, when the 76ers’ eight-man injury list was booed by the sparse faithful at the Wells Fargo Center, Tuesday’s 118-102 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder could’ve gone much worse. Thanks to injuries and the looming specter of Wednesday’s visit from the New York Knicks, the Sixers were left with a pandemic-like roster of nine available players, with the Western Conference-leading Thunder in town. The Sixers trailed by 21 points after the first 9:30 of “action,” by 16 after one quarter and watched the Thunder hit 13 of their first 15 shots from the field. A very MVP-like 32 points from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 24 from Jaylin Williams eventually asserted the Thunder’s obvious superiority. But if nothing else – and there truly wasn’t much else, in a game that ended with sporadic “Sell the Team” chants – the 76ers battled. With their 24th different starting five of the season, they even outscored the Thunder, 60-50, over the middle two quarters and were within four in the fourth quarter. They ended up even with the Thunder over the game’s final 36 minutes. But four players in double figures and 55.6 percent shooting from the field saw the Thunder to their 33rd win in 39 outings. Justin Edwards led the Sixers with 25 points. Jeff Dowtin had 18, Guerschon Yabusele added 17, Ricky Council 13 and Eric Gordon 10. Those are career-highs for Edwards and Dowtin, as well as Adem Bona with seven points. “After that first timeout, we came together and we were just like, we’ve got to fight,” Edwards said. “We don’t really have anything to lose. So we just went out there and played together and played hard.” There was little recourse, with – deep breath – Tyrese Maxey, Paul George and Caleb Martin ruled out to join Andre Drummond, Kyle Lowry, Joel Embiid and KJ Martin. “My reaction is about the same as it’s been most of the year,” coach Nick Nurse said of the late injury exodus. “You take a little bit of a gut punch, and then you regroup and figure out the starting lineups and you figure out the rotations and you figure out what needs to change on the game plan as quick as possible, and then go play.” Yabusele scored six points in the final 35.1 seconds of the third quarter, including a banked layup off a Dowtin missed 3-pointer, to get within 87-81. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Edwards and Gordon got the Sixers to within four with 9:54 to play. But the Thunder came back with seven straight, and the Sixers didn’t score for another 2:57. The effort was there for the 76ers. They forced the Thunder, who average 12 turnovers a game, into 12 in the first half, the bad basketball evidently contagious, and turned the Thunder over 17 times overall. They held OKC to 33.3 percent shooting from 3-point range. But the Thunder were too good. Gilgeous-Alexander shot 12-for-15 from the field, with 32 points and nine assists in 33 minutes. He was 8-for-8 for 19 points in the first half and made his first 10 looks. Cason Wallace added 18 points. Former Sixer Isaiah Joe added 10 points off the bench, and one-time Knick Isaiah Hartenstein paired nine points with 16 rebounds. The key, with the Knicks coming to town Wednesday and a trick back-to-back in Indiana and Milwaukee on the weekend, is to match the energy with the talent. Save for Lowry and KJ Martin (and out-for-the-season Jared McCain), all the 76ers injuries are day-to-day concerns. They’ll have time to recuperate this week to take some part in the trip. Nurse sees it as a personnel question, trying to mix and match lineups to pair vets with younger energy players like Edwards and Dowtin. For the players that contributed Tuesday, it’s a chance to graft what they did onto a bigger canvas. “I definitely try to bring energy and a spark off the bench, try to motivate guys, just continue to play hard and play aggressive,” Dowtin said. “I think the main thing with (being) shorthanded, we know that we’re going to need extra motivation, we’re going to need extra push, extra energy. So we wanted to play 10 times harder, 10 times smarter on the offensive and the defensive end.”