The Philadelphia 76ers will return home on Friday to play host to the Sacramento Kings, and they hope to get a bit healthier for that contest.
Before the Sixers took on the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday for a quick road game, coach Nick Nurse gave an optimistic update on Joel Embiid. The big fella was officially ruled out for Wednesday’s matchup with the Hawks due to left knee swelling that stems from an injury he sustained in a loss to the New York Knicks on Friday.
“He’s progressing good,” Nurse told reporters in Atlanta. “I’m hoping so. We’re still kind of going day to day. It’s not like it’s — he was, we thought, close to making this trip and playing today so I would assume a few more days should get us even closer.”
The biggest thing with Embiid is the swelling. The Sixers do not want to rush the reigning league MVP’s return. Once they get the swelling under control, he will be able to return. Which, again, hopefully, will be against the Kings on Friday at home.
“I think they got that under control,” Nurse added. “I think it’s just a combination of just making sure he’s good and he can handle — he’s got to go through some, they say ramp up, some stuff and some speed that he can handle. Gotta make sure that doesn’t cause some more pain or swelling so going through that process.”
Along with Embiid being out, the Sixers are missing Robert Covington, who is also dealing with a knee issue. Nurse gave a similarly optimistic update on RoCo as well.
“Cov was on the court today (Wednesday,” Nurse stated. “He had a good workout. He’s kind of dealing with the same situation. He’s got a knee that continues to swell and then go down and think it’s OK and then goes through the workout and had some more swelling, but today it did not so he got his workout and the swelling seems to be under control. So again, he should be on the same kind of day-to-day thing and hopefully, he’ll be ready to go soon.”
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