Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid is dealing with a small lateral meniscus tear in his right knee that is beginning to clearly bother him right now. The superstar big man has only missed one game with the injury, but in Monday’s Game 4 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, he did not look right.
Embiid shot just 4-for-20 in the game and he was 0-for-12 in the second half as the Sixers could not overcome his struggles. He admitted afterward that the knee is bothering him and he could not get enough lift on any of his shots and it seems as if this is going to bother him the rest of the way.
Veteran big man Dwight Howard suffered the same injury in 2015 when he played for the Houston Rockets. The injury did hold him back a bit in Houston’s run to the Western Conference Finals so he has experience in this situation.
“It really bothers you,” said Howard on Wednesday a shootaround. “The way Joel plays, the kind of moves he makes as far as the Euro steps and planting on one foot and bringing all the energy from one side to the other side, that causes a lot of stress on your body parts, especially your ligaments and your joints and your knees.”
Embiid does a lot of planting on that knee. Due to the way he plays and how agile he is, the big fella is able to work his way through a lot of defenders with the way he can move his body.
“Sometimes, that causes a lot of extra pain in that knee area,” Howard added. “The trainers have done an amazing job to get him ready for tonight.”
As far as Embiid individually, the Sixers will have to hope that he is healthy enough to just play at a high level and help Philadelphia retake control of the series at home.
“Monday is over,” Howard stated. “Today is what, Wednesday? So that’s in the past, you got to leave it where it’s at. I think what you do is you talk about it that night or the game, you know, get all that frustration out and bad energy that you may have had that game out, and come back the next day wake up ready to go.”
Embiid has stated over and over again that he is going to put his body on the line to help the Sixers win a title on this run. At this point, he is going to have to live up to those words and bring it in Game 5.
“I think he’s gonna come back and have an amazing game,” Howard finished. “He’s going to dominate the paint and that’s what’s going to take place to win the game.”
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