The 76ers are merely 3-4 during the team’s last seven games as a result of Joel Embiid missing five of them due to injury. They now trail Boston by five games for the top position in the East and Milwaukee by 1.5 games for the No. 2 spot. That may have been altered if there had been a healthy Embiid out there.
What is the current state of affairs regarding injuries? Let out sighs.
Embiid’s injury report and a tune that’s all too common
After missing the 76ers’ previous four games due to an ankle injury, Embiid made his first appearance back in the starting lineup. He looked right as he summarily defeated the Chicago Bulls.
However, the 76ers were humiliated at home by the New York Knicks in Joel’s return game, and he was seen hobbling around, supposedly inflating his stats in another blowout loss.
Not to be outdone, Embiid missed the following game against Utah due to “left knee swelling.” It should be noted that the leg he was nursing is not the same as the right ankle.
After seven years of this stuff, maybe some of us fans are developing a sixth sense for “Joel danger-zone games” because I tweeted this before that Raps contest too:
If he had been taken out of the Toronto or Knicks games sooner, would he have missed fewer than four straight and five of seven? Could they have prevented the stated swelling in their left knee that has since developed in some way? Was he trying to make up for the ankle?
Concerns regarding Joel and Sixers’ load management procedure remain.
I’ve been writing for years on end that the majority of Embiid’s ***predictable*** plays are on dunks and track-down block attempts in traffic, not the crazy kind where, like, Markelle Fultz goes all Conor McGregor and crushes Jo’s eyesocket.
For the most part, he has been restricted by that in the playoffs for at least two of the previous three seasons.