A heavyweight fight between Joel Embiid and Victor Wembanyama headlined Monday night in San Antonio. Unfortunately, the French phenom suffered an early injury, which cut it short at halftime. The Spurs, still a strong team without Wembanyama, still handed the Sixers a crucial loss despite a gutsy effort from Embiid.

After a shaky first quarter in which he experienced an injury scare, Embiid became dominant as a scorer, no matter who was guarding him. For a long while, nobody joined him. By the time the Sixers had started to figure out their offense – not having Wembanyama and his 8-foot wingspan patrolling the paint certainly helped – it was too late. San Antonio showed why it has not been reliant on its NBA MVP contender all season long, and the Sixers showed why even a vintage performance from their former NBA MVP winner is not enough to guarantee a victory.

For the Sixers, it is a costly loss, particularly because at one point they found themselves in the driver's seat with a chance to take advantage of an opportunity. Despite a hot start, Paul George played his worst game since returning from suspension. Tyrese Maxey struggled for much of the night, too, and there was just not enough offensive firepower for the Sixers to win.

Takeaways from a 115-102 Sixers loss, which was both expected and disappointing:

Battle between Joel Embiid and Victor Wembanyama cut short

It is hard to imagine any matchup between Embiid and Wembanyama will top the first, in which Embiid scored a career-high 70 points against a rookie Wembanyama and a Spurs team still finding its way. Now, Wembanyama is a transcendent two-way force – at worst, the third-best player in the NBA – and his Spurs are a complete juggernaut, unquestioned championship contenders.

Early on, it did not seem like these two were primed to engage in much of a battle at all. Embiid was laboring within the first minute of the game; he seemed to twist his knee as soon as it started. He was sluggish early on and checked out about four minutes into the game, but an early heater from George (11 points in the first quarter) helped keep the Sixers afloat. Wembanyama was already asserting his will on both ends of the floor, but George's strong start, combined with Wembanyama's supporting cast being rather muted, helped the Sixers stick around.

The second quarter is when things escalated. Embiid found the perfect amount of force and began to dominate any and all Spurs defenders, particularly Wembanyama, who he began to light up with mid-range jumpers aided by methodical dribbles, which kept Wembanyama on his toes. He did not know when to expect Embiid to shoot, pass or fake; Embiid had him guessing and most of those guesses were wrong. Meanwhile, Embiid was just as vulnerable defensively, because Wembanyama moves better than him in addition to his enormous height advantage. While his rim protection grew to be quite good in this game, Embiid struggled handling Wembanyama one-on-one.

Wembanyama led the Spurs with 17 points at halftime, but it was Embiid leading all scorers. He put up 16 in the second quarter alone, with many of them coming in one-on-one work against Wembanyama. This pair of threes from the two bigs was outrageous:

When the second half began, however, it was Luke Kornet manning the middle for San Antonio. Wembanyama, who briefly went to the locker room after a collision with George, was ruled out for the remainder of the game with a left rib contusion. It robbed all parties involved of what would have been appointment viewing in the second half.

Instead, Embiid did battle with Kornet and a slew of wings sliding up into small-ball five minutes. Embiid scored 11 points in the third quarter, and much of his damage came via foul-drawing. Kornet is a large man, but he could not handle Embiid, nor could wings like Keldon Johnson, Harrison Barnes and Carter Bryant. He played the entire third quarter after also playing the entire second quarter, logging more than 27 consecutive minutes upon returning to the floor after his early injury scare.

The Sixers entered the fourth quarter trailing by seven points and needing to stay afloat or even earn some points back without Embiid. He sat for the first four minutes and 25 seconds of the quarter, then came back in and immediately drew a foul. From there, he struggled to leave his mark, and the Sixers sputtered offensively. It was still quite an impressive performance from Embiid, both for what he did on the court and for what he fought through to do it. But for him to play 39 minutes in a loss, given his current condition, is a brutal outcome.

An unusual Tyrese Maxey game

Tyrese Maxey did not score a single point in 19 minutes prior to intermission, and even with George and Embiid experiencing individual heaters, it was hard to believe. Maxey did not seem all that interested in seeking out his own shot, and to be fair, he did collect seven first-half assists. But Maxey is not Rajon Rondo. His main utility, even when his star teammates find grooves, is to score.

Maxey missed a look or two that would usually fall, but otherwise just did not hunt for his shots in the first half. That is uncharacteristic for him. Maxey is not selfish, but he rarely hesitates to at least force the defense into rotation. He seemed unusually content to just let others do it, and the Sixers could have used any scoring punch from their soon-to-be All-NBA guard.

Most coaches would have called the first play for Maxey out of halftime, and that is exactly what Sixers head coach Nick Nurse did. Maxey was able to penetrate and draw a foul at the rim, getting on the board with a pair of free throws. Moments later, VJ Edgecombe found him for a transition triple. Maxey rested in the middle of the third quarter as part of Nurse's new-look substitution patterns, and when he returned late in the frame he was able to convert a dazzling finish at the rim. He missed runners before and after that, though, sinking him to a 2-for-9 shooting line entering the final frame.

That is where Maxey's biggest minutes of the game came, as the Sixers needed someone to assume some of Embiid's scoring. He started on a good note, finishing a right-handed flip shot on the move, then watched as the Spurs made a spirited push to extend their lead from seven points to 14. He connected on a jumper to quiet down a crazed San Antonio crowd before Embiid returned.

Maxey is always at his best and most efficient when sharing the floor with Embiid, whose presence helped Maxey score on a floater right away. But teammates known for their brilliant two-man actions were unable to summon enough offensive juice to mount a comeback against the Wembanyama-less Spurs.

Nobody expected the Sixers to come to San Antonio and get a win, but nobody expected them to have a second-half lead with Wembanyama ruled out. They botched a chance to steal a victory, and it will hurt their chances of avoiding the Play-In Tournament.

Odds and ends

Two additional notes:

• Nurse went with Andre Drummond over Adem Bona early on Monday, and perhaps Drummond's size was what he was looking for against Wembanyama. The backup center situation remains very fluid and matchup-dependent. For what it's worth: Bona has played against Wembanyama more than Embiid, or Drummond, or most people. Bona and Wembanyama frequently faced off in international competitions as teenagers.

• Nurse also made yet another starting lineup change, going back to Kelly Oubre Jr., sliding George up to power forward and moving Dominick Barlow to the bench despite his strong fit with Embiid. This was a particularly obvious matchup for such a move – San Antonio starts four legitimate perimeter threats in addition to Wembanyama, and it would be a challenge to handle all of those threats without Oubre's versatile defense. Wembanyama also would also have had an exceptionally easy time roaming off of Barlow, which would have allowed him to torment Sixers drivers even more. It remains to be seen if this is a permanent change to the starting five – recent history tells us there might be no such thing for Nurse – or one prompted by a unique opponent.

Up next: The Sixers will have two days off before facing the Houston Rockets on Thursday night, which kicks off their final back-to-back of the season.