It’s never an ideal situation when you lose your best player for a period of time. For the Philadelphia 76ers, they are going to hope they can spin Joel Embiid’s absence into a positive.
Embiid will undergo surgery on Friday to repair a torn ligament in his left hand and he will be out for at least a week or two. That gives coach Brett Brown a chance to experiment with new things and see what he truly has in his arsenal.
For one, Ben Simmons was used as a center in Thursday’s win over the Boston Celtics as it showed off some new wrinkles to the offense. Another thing aspect that the Sixers will try to do is feature Al Horford a bit more with Embiid out.
“Probably to feature him more,” said coach Brett Brown on Horford’s new role. “I don’t pay much attention, but with the questions I get asked, I think people have to understand in that old world as of 24 hours ago with Joel, he’s not featured as much. It’s part of being on a good team and he accepts that.”
He had 17 points, eight rebounds, and six assists on Thursday as he looked more like the Al Horford people are used to seeing. So with Horford now running things in the middle, the plan changes. He will now be the one featured on the low block.
“To now play him and feature him more in things that we all know that he’s quite good at, capable at in just more of a frequent environment, then I think the positives can come out of this,” Brown added.
Of course, the big challenge will be when Embiid does return from his injury. The Sixers will still have the same spacing issues when he returns. It isn’t like this is all of a sudden going to go away now. This will just be something they use until he returns.
“I think we really moved the ball and tried to play with pace, trying to keep up with Ben,” said Horford. “He’s flying all over the place, making plays and stuff, so we just have to play different until Joel gets back and then integrate him and continue to figure it out as a group.”
So for Horford and the Sixers, they have to find some good success during these next few weeks and then find a way to keep it rolling and integrate Embiid back into it.
“Then when we do get Joel back in the mix, hopefully, we’ve got some good things to look at with Al Horford in the rearview mirror,” Brown finished with.
Philadelphia will continue to chug along until the big man returns and it will continue on Saturday when they face the Dallas Mavericks on the road. [lawrence-related id=23195,23177,23169]