Just before the unveiling of the Allen Iverson statue last Friday in Camden, N.J., Sixers coach Nick Nurse stood at a lectern within the team’s practice facility and addressed Iverson and the large crowd that had gathered.
“I’m gonna fight my ass off,” Nurse told the retired star, “to get this team back to where you took ‘em.”
The reference was to the Sixers’ run to the 2001 Finals, and it sounded like something of a rallying cry. Certainly it was well-received not only within the room, but among a wider audience, once Nurse’s remarks were disseminated.
Later that day, however, Joel Embiid appeared to tweak his left knee in the second quarter of a game against the Orlando Magic. Embiid, who had missed 29 games with a meniscus injury in that same knee, limped off but returned to collect 32 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists in a 125-113 victory.
Yet he was held out of Sunday’s season-ending 107-86 victory over Brooklyn. Nurse said afterward it was a mere precaution, that Embiid will be good to go when the Sixers, the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed, host No. 8 Miami in a play-in tournament game Wednesday.
Still, we are once again in the position we always seem to be with the Sixers heading into the postseason, which is to say high hopes are offset by gnawing realities. If it seems like Embiid is always banged up at this time of year, it’s because he almost always is.
There was his broken face – OK, a fractured orbital bone – in 2018, which left him wearing a protective mask and calling himself the “Phantom of the Process.” There was tendinitis of the left knee in 2019. There was a torn right meniscus in 2021. There were torn ligaments of his right thumb in 2022, as well as another orbital fracture. And last year he was slowed by a sore back and a sprained right knee.
Only in 2020 – i.e., the COVID year – has Embiid enjoyed a clean bill of health heading into the playoffs, and that was the year the Sixers were swept by Boston in the first round. Each of those other seasons they fell in Round No. 2, and it bears repeating that they haven’t climbed beyond that rung in the ladder since that aforementioned ‘00-01 season, nor won a title since 1982-83.
Backup center Paul Reed called the Embiid situation “extremely concerning” after Sunday’s game.
“But,” Reed added, “at the end of the day, with Joel, without Joel, we’ve still got to go out there and handle business. Obviously he’s averaging 30 points, so it would be nice to have him, but you’ve got to be prepared to win games without him as well.”
Veteran forward Tobias Harris said much the same thing.
“Obviously we want everybody to be as healthy as possible for a long playoff run, but we understand the lay of the land now,” he said. “Obviously we want Big Fellah to be as healthy as possible and be ready. But we also know that everybody on this whole team, whole locker room has to step up and be ready every single night that we play.”
The team Daryl Morey has constructed appears to complement Embiid perfectly, if the reigning MVP is right. Tyrese Maxey is an excellent Robin to Embiid’s Batman. Kelly Oubre Jr. has enjoyed a terrific season, Buddy Hield and Harris are dangerous (if erratic) and Nic Batum and Kyle Lowry are reliable, winning players. Reed and Cameron Payne are also useful subs.
At full strength, the Sixers loom as a spoiler at the bottom of the East bracket. But we don’t know how healthy Embiid might be. All Nurse would say after Sunday’s game was this: “He did everything in practice yesterday. We just decided out of caution to hold him out. He’ll be ready to go, be fine.”
He almost whispered the last few words of that final sentence, as if it were wishful thinking.
Certainly they will need to be at their best against the Heat, a dangerous postseason team headed by a dangerous postseason player in old friend Jimmy Butler. Should the Sixers survive that test, they would secure the seventh seed and get the No. 2 Knicks in the first round. But if they slip up against Miami, they get the winner of the 9-10 game – either Chicago or Atlanta – on Friday, with the promise of a first-round meeting with top-seeded Boston beyond that. Not ideal.
Beyond Embiid there are continuing concerns about De’Anthony Melton, who has been dealing with back problems most of the season. Nurse said they hope to have him at some point in the postseason, but isn’t sure when. The coach seemed less optimistic about Robert Covington, who hasn’t played since Dec. 30 because of a bone bruise to his left knee.
But Embiid is obviously the big concern.
“All year long we had to control what we could control,” Harris said, “and if we can get everyone healthy that makes us an even better team and more powerful team. But in the grand scheme of things, everybody’s ready for any moment we have right now.”
He went on to say that they are “a very confident group right now” and that “the confidence and morale and spirit of the team is in a very good spot.”
So they have hope. But the realities cannot be ignored. As always, they will go only as far as Embiid can lug them. That’s hardly a revelation, but neither is the fact that he’s hardly ever at his best, come this time of year. That’s not his fault, and not an indictment. It is what it is, as the saying goes. And now it’s a matter of what will be.