Joel Embiid Injures Knee on Hard Fall as Sixers Hold Their Breath
Joel Embiid is playing about as well as anyone in the NBA right now and is the backbone of the Philadelphia 76ers championship hopes this season. That's why Sixers fans are holding their collective breath right now after he suffered a hard fall during Game 4 on Philly's series with the Washington Wizards.
Embiid went up for a dunk late in the first quarter of the game Monday evening and appeared to land hard on his back. He went to the locker room and was subsequently ruled out for the rest of the game.
The sequence that had Joel Embiid grabbing at his back: pic.twitter.com/BIXGpJUhkL
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) May 31, 2021
Here's another look:
The Embiid landed on his tailbone but has right knee soreness apparently pic.twitter.com/B3U2suYxpt
— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) June 1, 2021
The stated reason for his absence is knee soreness, and you can see on the fall his right leg buckled under him a bit.
The Sixers say Joel Embiid will not return to this game with right knee soreness.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) June 1, 2021
Embiid has a lengthy injury history and missed his first two seasons due to a foot injury and also suffered a meniscus tear in his left knee as a rookie in 2017. Since then he's been relatively healthy, He missed most of March this season with a bone bruise in his left knee and has never played close to a full season. But few stars are able to do that these days and he hasn't faced serious issues like he did early in his career. But hard fall like the one he took Monday night could derail that. It looked bad.
Hopefully it's nothing serious and he's back for Philly's next game.