Sixers react to Joel Embiid’s injury, discuss how they replace his scoring
CAMDEN, N.J.–The Philadelphia 76ers are in a tough spot as they prepare for the Miami Heat for Game 1 of the Eastern semifinals without their superstar big man in Joel Embiid. The big fella suffered an orbital fracture and a concussion in the team’s Game 6 win over the Toronto Raptors.
The Sixers will now have a huge challenge as they prepare for this next series without their best player. Philadelphia will be in trouble if other guys don’t step up on the offensive end in this series and as they get set to head down to Miami on Monday, they will have to figure out just how they replace him.
Doc Rivers on the injury
“I don’t know if you make up for it, but you figure out how. It‘s a tough injury. The good news, I guess, is he’s had it before. The bad news, there’s just no timeline for when he’s coming back.”
Is there hope Embiid can return against the Heat?
Rivers: “I don’t know. There’s hope, obviously, but I don’t know right now. I think we have to let him get through the process and see where he’s at.”
When did Rivers learn that Embiid was really hurt?
“That night. Joel told me right away, but probably that night.”
“Obviously, tough news to take, but we just as a group, we want him to get healthy and better. Whenever that is, we’ll be ready, but at the end of the day, for us, it’s a next man up mentality and just being locked in of the game plan. We just gotta figure it out. This has been a resilient group all year so nothing has changed in that regard so we’ll prepare the same way and we’ll wait for big fella to get whatever he needs to get back to where he needs to be.”
“It’s unfortunate. I feel bad for him. Obviously, he was dealing with the thumb issue since Game 3 and for something to happen like that in a closeout game kinda sucks, but it’s the nature of the beast, it’s the playoffs. Injuries happen, unfortunate things happen. That’s why we got a deep group that can play multiple styles of basketball. That’s another reason why they got James (Harden) to be able to pick up some of that slack, but it’s not all on him. It’s on all of us until we get the big fella back.”
How do the Sixers replace Embiid's scoring?
Harris: “Just from us playing the way we’re playing. Continuing to push the pace, continuing to execute offensively, using our defense so it’s just gonna be added efforts from different guys, different opportunities, but overall, we kinda know from the last series what worked for us is just us continuing to move the basketball and just whatever happens, go from there, and guys taking the proper space and being prepared and ready.”
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