Joel Embiid’s latest injury concern isn’t expected to result in a shutdown for the 76ers superstar, his head coach said after losing Game 1 to the Knicks.
Nick Nurse said the Sixers will continue to assess Embiid’s health but aren’t currently considering shutting down the reigning NBA MVP, who underwent left knee surgery less than three months ago and missed part of Saturday’s second quarter after appearing to tweak the same leg.
“He’s really a warrior, and he’s battling,” Nurse said. “I think he absolutely wants to play.”
Embiid grabbed his left knee after finishing an emphatic alley-oop dunk that he set up for himself with a lob off the backboard with 2:50 remaining in the second quarter.
The 7-foot center missed the rest of the quarter but returned for the start of the third, finishing with 29 points, eight rebounds and six assists in 37 minutes in Philly’s 111-104 loss at Madison Square Garden in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
“I knew when I went in at halftime that they were checking him out, and that he was up and moving,” Nurse said afterward. “And they did say, ‘We’re seeing.’ They didn’t rule him out yet. They just took him all the way to the end there to get him ruled back in.”
Embiid, who didn’t speak after the game, missed about two months after undergoing a procedure on the lateral meniscus in his left knee in early February.
Saturday marked his seventh game back. Embiid also came up gimpy toward the end of the first half of his April 12 game against the Magic, only to finish that game as well.
“He’s always a fighter,” teammate Tyrese Maxey said Saturday. “He’s always going to go out there and try to give his all for his team, so if he’s able to go … he for sure will be out there.”
Embiid’s dunk on Saturday was his first since returning from the initial injury. He committed to the self-pass after Knicks center Mitchell Robinson bit on a pump fake at the free-throw line.
“I just think that was the play that happened,” Nurse said when asked if Embiid should play more cautiously. “He pump faked up and the guy jumped over him and he had an angle.”
A hobbled or absent Embiid would serve as a significant advantage for the Knicks in the best-of-seven series, considering the do-it-all seven-time All-Star is a force on offense and defense. His 34.7 points and 5.6 assists per game marked career highs, though he is ineligible to repeat as league MVP after failing to appear in the requisite 65 games.
The Knicks ended Saturday’s second quarter on a 9-0 run following Embiid’s dunk.
Mitchell Robinson, who underwent an in-season surgery of his own on his left ankle, made scoring difficult for Embiid in his 30 minutes off the Knicks bench. Embiid went just 8-of-22 from the field after making 52.9% of his shots in the regular season.
Game 2 between the No. 2-seed Knicks and seventh-seeded 76ers is set to take place Monday night at the Garden.
