The Philadelphia 76ers are a team that is trying to grow some chemistry as the season progresses and they steamroll towards the playoffs. However, if these injuries continue to pop up, it throws a wrench into that plan and that is the case for big man Joel Embiid.
Embiid suffered a dislocated finger injury in Monday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder and he battled through it in order to score 18 points with nine rebounds and eight assists. The injury is enough for him to miss Thursday’s big matchup with the Boston Celtics and the team is prepared for him to be out longer than just one game.
“To think that I’m not thinking longer, whenever the news comes out, would be disingenuous,” said coach Brett Brown. “You have to think ‘Now what does this mean?’ and because we have sort of rare air in that we actually have practice, you want to take advantage of some things. If you tilted the priorities of weight, it certainly was driven toward trying to beat Boston, but I would be lying if you didn’t do some things in the event that you receive news.”
That’s a big loss for them as he is their one advantage down low against the smaller C’s. That means Brown has to come up with a plan of how to operate with Al Horford in the middle rather than his superstar in Embiid.
“You say ‘What does the world look like without Joel?’ and my mind immediately goes to defense,” Brown added. “You can talk about Al and what role is he in now, maybe there’s a line drawn through both of those for a period of time, but I’m looking forward to seeing him play against his old team tomorrow.”
Embiid has a defensive rating of 102 and Horford’s defensive rating of 106 so that’s a pretty big swing. Philadelphia will have to battle through without the help of the star whether he’s gone for just the short term and the long term. It puts pressure on other players, but this is why the Sixers made the moves they did in order to compete without having to rely so much on Embiid. [lawrence-related id=23027,23013,23010]