BOSTON — The Philadelphia 76ers received the news that they were expecting: Joel Embiid was officially ruled out for Game 1 against the Boston Celtics on Monday. The big fella has been dealing with sprained LCL in his right knee, and he was listed as doubtful before being ruled out.
Embiid was at the team’s shootaround on Monday morning, but that wasn’t enough for him to be ready. The big worry beyond the injury itself is he hasn’t been able to run, which means his conditioning could be affected.
When asked if he was able to do any running after shootaround, coach Doc Rivers kept it simple.
“No,” he said succinctly. “He shot today (Monday) a little bit after practice. That was his first real court time, but there was zero running still.”
The Sixers will play Game 2 in Boston on Wednesday. When asked if there was any optimism Embiid could return for that one, Rivers wasn’t sure if he’d see his star big man.
“I honestly, I don’t know,” he stated. “I hope, but I can’t even say. It hasn’t even been talked about yet.”
It’s obvious what Embiid has to do to get back out on the floor. He has to be able to run and be able to do something on that knee. Just standing there and taking stationary jump shots is not going to be the big go-to for him to get back on the floor.
“Obviously, this is not normal where you miss a game and you have 10 days off or nine days off and you haven’t done anything in that and then you miss another game and just the basketball side of me says if we can get him on the floor to do something before he plays, that would be the wise thing to do,” Rivers added. “But we’ll see.”
Game 1 is Monday and Philadelphia will try again with the big fella on Wednesday for Game 2.
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