The Philadelphia 76ers received a scare in Washington D.C. on Friday when their star big man, Joel Embiid, fell to the floor after a monstrous dunk and he immediately was grabbing his knee. He was on the floor for a long time and it looked like that he suffered something serious.
On Saturday, Embiid underwent an MRI and it revealed good news. The injury is just a bone bruise and he will be able to return in 2-to-3 weeks. Considering how much pain the big fella was in on Friday, this could have been a lot worse.
“I was happy with the news,” said coach Doc Rivers. “It looked bad but, obviously, we never know and that’s what I was saying that night. We had to wait and see and it turned out in our favor, in a lot of ways.”
As for Embiid, mentally, now the challenge is to keep his spirits high and to keep him healthy going forward. The big positive light here is that the injury is not as bad as they expected and the team now has a plan moving forward to get him back healthy and on that MVP train again.
“He’s great,” Rivers said of Embiid. “I don’t think anybody’s in great spirits, but he was happy that it wasn’t as bad as a lot of people thought it was probably, including himself in that so he was in a pretty good place. Now that he knows all it takes is rehab, he has a game plan, we have a game plan, and we’re moving forward with it.”
The Sixers will take on the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday at home at 6:30 p.m. EST where they will at least have Ben Simmons return.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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