The Sixers can’t take any opponent for granted, even when the Wizards and Pelicans come to town

From the outside looking in, it looked like the 76ers were set up to sweep a three-game homestand against struggling teams.

But as we learned in Monday’s 109-99 setback to the Phoenix Suns, the Sixers (14-20) can’t take any team for granted.

They struggled to make shots and failed to get defensive stops against the Suns (16-18), who had lost four straight and seven of their last eight games.

» READ MORE: What happened to Paul George’s shot? The Sixers are working on it.

Now the Sixers turn their attention to the Washington Wizards, a team with the NBA’s worst record (6-27) entering Tuesday’s game against the Houston Rockets. The Sixers will take a five-game winning streak into Wednesday’s contest at the Wells Fargo Center.

After Wednesday’s game, the Sixers will finish this homestand against the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans enter Tuesday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves with the Western Conference’s worst record (7-29).

However, they will be without two of their best players in Joel Embiid and Paul George against the Wizards. Kyle Lowry will also sit out.

Embiid (sprained left foot) and Lowry (sore right hip) will miss their second straight game. Meanwhile, George will miss the game with a tight left groin. This comes after the nine-time All-Star participated in Tuesday’s light practice and participated in post-practice shooting drills with star guard Tyrese Maxey.

Embiid, Lowry and Andre Drummond did not practice. Drummond, who also missed Monday’s game, is questionable for Wednesday with a sprained left toe.

The undermanned team was already without Jared McCain (left knee surgery) and KJ Martin (left foot stress reaction).

Regardless of who is available, the Sixers will be accused of putting their focus on playing better. Their offense ranks 29th in the NBA in assists (21.9 per game), 28th in scoring (107.4 points per game) and 25th in field-goal percentage (44.7%) and three- point percentage (34%).

All of those weaknesses were on display against Phoenix, as the Sixers shot 39.1% from the field — including 15-for-40 on three-pointers. They also made just 16 of 26 foul shots.

“Well, I think there’s always cleanup stuff,” coach Nick Nurse said Tuesday about what the team can do differently. “Last night I think if I had to pick a couple of things, I didn’t love our overall spacing, things that had been really good in a lot of the games recently, spacing. I thought there were some chances when we hit the paint to also kick out to open shooters.”

» READ MORE: Sixers takeaways: Kelly Oubre Jr. underused, Paul George plays isolation ball

Instead, the Sixers sometimes forced tough shots at the rim and routinely failed to finish drives to the basket.

“If you want to get one-on-one at the rim that deep in the paint, you have to do more,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know what we ended up with, but I know in the first half we were 5-of-18 (shooting) at the rim. When you get there, you’ve got to be able to finish.”

In a physical game, the refs didn’t call many of the bumps and hits that players are used to receiving on layups. During timeouts, the Sixers coaches reminded the players not to play with the hope of making mistakes. They were instructed to go hard to the basket with an intent to score or kick the ball out to an open teammate.

The Sixers also want to maintain their focus amid scoring droughts and rough patches during games.

“Just weathering the storm and staying focused I think is big for us,” Caleb Martin said. “Once we get out of that, we’ll learn to close out games and then all the pieces will start to come together.”

Martin believes the Sixers are slowly getting there.

“It’s a good problem to have because we didn’t have the problem early in the season,” he said. “We were worried about trying to win a game. Now we worry about staying focused and finishing a game.

“So we’re putting ourselves in position to win games now. That’s good. We’ve just got to get over that hump a lot sooner than later right now. We’re getting there. We just need that little extra juice.”

In other news, the Sixers waived two-way post player Pete Nance. The 6-foot-11, 230-pounder had three points and one rebound in 2 minutes, 56 seconds of action against the Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 30. It was his only NBA action after signing with the Sixers on Dec. 3.