Joel Embiid feared this would be the case. Turns out, he was right.
The Philadelphia 76ers announced Friday night that Embiid – the NBA scoring champion and an MVP finalist – has a right orbital fracture and a mild concussion. Those injuries, for now anyway, have him listed as out on the injury report and will keep him there for the foreseeable future.
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The 76ers open an Eastern Conference semi-final series at Miami on Monday night.
The injuries stem from a hit Embiid took with 3:58 left of Thursday night’s game in Toronto, when the 76ers were up by 29 points and well on their way to getting an East first-round-clinching win over the Raptors. He got hit in the face by a driving Pascal Siakam, and immediately took several steps back in obvious pain.
Embiid checked out moments later. Now, nobody knows when he’ll play again. He sat down for a post-game interview with NBA TV immediately following the game, and one of the first questions he got was about how he was feeling.
“I think he might have broken my face,” Embiid said. “It’s all good. It’s the playoffs.”
Thing is, it wasn’t all good. And Embiid’s diagnosis was spot on.
Barring a significant change, it would appear Embiid won’t be able to start this series – at minimum. A similar fracture, to his left orbital bone, kept him out for about three weeks late in the 2017-18 season. He needed surgery and missed 10 games, including the first two games of a playoff series against the Heat.
The amount of time he misses now is, obviously, contingent on the severity of whatever is fractured in the bones around Embiid’s eye. He wore a specially designed mask in 2018 when he returned, even after
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