PHILADELPHIA — Nick Nurse didn’t spend much time trying to reconcile a timeline that doesn’t appear to make much sense. Joel Embiid sprained his left foot in Boston on Christmas. He played that night, and in four of the next five games on the holiday roadtrip, all but the front half of a back-to-back on Jan. 1 in Sacramento. Since returning home, Embiid has missed six straight games, including Wednesday’s playoff rematch with the New York Knicks at the Wells Fargo Center, despite a day-to-day designation. Nurse didn’t put a date on a concrete instance in which Embiid aggravated the foot. Embiid played 28:58 in a win over Brooklyn on Jan. 4, scoring 28 points with 12 rebounds, six assists and a plus-22. Since then, Embiid has been listed a questionable a couple of times but has yet to play. He’s appeared in 13 games this season and, through injury or ejection, finished 11 of them. Nurse demurred on what Embiid’s limitations are at this point or if there are specific mileposts he must hit in order to play. He did say, though, that Embiid looked himself in his last game action, even if that was 11 days ago and counting. “I always judge it on what he looks like in the games,” Nurse said. “When he’s driving the basketball and taking it into the paint and things, I think he’s usually feeling pretty decent. I think you’ll see games where he stays out of the perimeter, doesn’t roll as much, doesn’t post as much, then he’s playing probably through something. That’s just my own gut instinct. So in that game, I think he played 30 minutes, he was driving the ball and feeling pretty good and all that kind of stuff. But obviously the foot is bothering him since then.” Embiid is averaging 24.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 3.8 assists in 29.5 minutes per game. He’s only made 10 starts this season with both Paul George and Tyrese Maxey in the lineup. The trio only finished seven of those. • • • Notes >> After last night’s 16-point loss to the Thunder, both Maxey (left hand sprain) and George (right ankle soreness) were good to go Wednesday. … Karl-Anthony Towns missed out with a right thumb sprain. He spent it on the Knicks bench in Eagles gear, an interesting choice for the native of Edison, N.J. … The Knicks, as is their norm, started three Villanova products in Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson. Brunson is coming off 31 points and 11 assists on Monday, his 10th such game as a Knick, one shy of Richie Guerin’s franchise record. He had a fair few fans in orange and blue at his back Wednesday in a rematch of last year’s first-round playoff contest.