Joel Embiid’s knee injury has hung the Sixers ’season in balance

The Philadelphia 76ers peace-story season returned to reality Friday.

In the third quarter of the 127ers’ 127-101 victory over the Washington Wizards, All-Star center Joel Embiid landed abruptly after a dunk and immediately grabbed for his left knee.

Eventually Embiid got up and went into the locker room unassisted. According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, he seemed to be saying “I’m okay,” but it was “hard to say.”

The big man is expected to undergo an MRI on his return to Philadelphia, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, and his results will determine what happens to the Sixers over the rest of the season.

“He fell suddenly,” head coach Doc Rivers said of Embiid’s injury after the game. “I thought there was a bit of communication when he went up to throw the ball. He thought he fell with his balance. I’m not going to speculate, tomorrow we’ll know , we’ll have all the information for you. For the best. I spoke to him, he was in the locker room. He ‘s in good spirits, so let’ s hope for the best. “

It’s not too much to say that Embiid played at an MVP-caliber level over the first half of the season. Most oddsmakers had wanted to win the prize pool into Friday night, as he entered the game earning an average of 30.2 points high on a 52.1 percent shot, rebounds 11.6, 3.3 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.2 steals for the Sixers who dominated the Eastern Conference.

Losing it for a longer period of time – much less than the rest of the season – looks set to be a death blow for the Sixers to win a title this year.

With Embiid on the floor this season, the Sixers are gaining an average of 117.9 points per 100 possessions, which follows just the Brooklyn Nets ’top league mark of 118.4. When on the bench, they only get an average of 104.2 points per 100 possessions, which is a tenth of a point behind the worst mark in the Cleveland Cavaliers league of 104.3.

Heavy bench units share some of the blame for the anemic scores sans Embiid, but the Sixers have designed their offense to run through the big man. He leads the team with a usage level of 34.1, while none of his other players are even higher than 24. Embiid is also second on the team with 76.0 touches per game, just slowing down Ben Simmons’ 87.8, and is third in the league with 51.5 faces. rub each game.

When the Sixers’ half-court offense becomes unstoppable, Embiid has been able to destroy double- and tripartite teams with one hand, as he did Friday against the Magi before being injured.

Embiid’s combination of scoring rub, physical and footwork makes him depressed for his defense, which is why he leads the league with 11.6 free throw attempts per game. Not only does that help the Sixers to generate easy points – it knocks out its freebies at a career high of 85.6 percent – but it also resists bigs in fake trouble. , weakening the opponent’s face court.

There’s no better way to give the Sixers the value of Embiid than this: They take out opponents 12.0 points per 100 possessions along with it on the court, while getting out 4.3 with off the floor. That 16.3-point swing is more than five points higher than the next highest mark from a rotation ball (Seth Curry’s plus-11.0).

The Sixers still have Dwight Howard and Tony Bradley, and they both played well when Embiid did not win Thursday over the Chicago Bulls and after going down Friday. They have taken a big enough lead in the East that they should retain a place in both playoffs, but they would be a clear line under the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks without Embiid.

The results of his MRI will thus confirm the Sixers ’path into the March 25 NBA trade deadline. If they don’t expect him to return to full strength with the playoffs, they will have less incentive to swim for the fences on a trade now for a veteran like Toronto Raptors guarding Kyle Lowry.

For now, the Sixers can only wait and hope.

“We’re not doing anything right now because we don’t have any information, so we’re just waiting,” Rivers said. “I thought our boys paid attention to the game, which is very good, and then tomorrow we’ll get more information and then we’ll get out of there. Listen, it’s a long season, so at the end of the day, we hope it’s not something we lose, obviously. But our boys will be good, we’ll be ready. “

Unless otherwise stated, all stats will go through NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the glass no Basketball reference. All salary information through Spotrac.