If the Boston Celtics advance from their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks as they are likely to do with a 3-1 lead, they could find themselves facing a Philadelphia 76ers team without its best player available to start the series.
MVP candidate big man Joel Embiid has been out with a sprained knee, and if he doesn’t heal quickly, he could miss a game or two, per reporting from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.
“He has a sprained LCL in his right knee,” explained Shelburne on a recent episode of “NBA Today.” “That’s the lateral collateral ligament. When he first went down with this injury, the sense is that it was going to be one, maybe two weeks depending on how he feels.”
“Now, he’s going to be re-evaluated in the middle of this week, but the injury happened on April 20th and the second round starts April 29th,” suggested Shelburne. “That’s right in that window where he could come back in time.”
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“It’ll depend on what happens in his evaluation this week in the middle of the week,” she added. “I’m told he’s doing better — he’s moving around better, the swelling subsided, but when he gets in there with the doctors and they see how he feels, you’re not going to push it with something like that.”
Even if Embiid is able to get back on the court sooner than later, he will likely have that brace and the business of getting back into the flow of postseason basketball with it — no easy task, even for an MVP candidate.
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