The Philadelphia 76ers are currently living in a golden age of roster health. They’ve played the last time games without a single player unavailable due to injury (certainly a factor in their going 2-0
across those contests). Sixers fans right now are collectively the Lebron “can’t believe this is my life” meme. Now, ahead of Sunday evening’s game in Toronto, there is one addition to the injury report, but it’s an expected one.
The Sixers have a back-to-back coming up with another game in Toronto on Monday night (the rare baseball-style two-game series the NBA throws on the schedule maybe once per season). We know Embiid is not going to be playing both ends of the back-to-back (probably ever again). So it’s only a question of whether he is going to sit out on Sunday or on Monday. The Sixers could have already decided what they want to do and this is just a bit of gamesmanship, they could still be thinking it over, or they could be leaving the door open to all possibilities and waiting to see how Joel feels on Sunday morning.
There doesn’t seem to be any difference in terms of the schedule of which would be a “better” option. The Sixers last played Friday night in Orlando, so it would be one day off before playing on Sunday. If he played on Monday, there would be one day off before Wednesday’s game back home against the Cavaliers. Logically, if Embiid feels good tomorrow, I would play him then and sit him out Monday for a couple days off ahead of Cleveland (kind of a ‘strike while the iron’s hot’ situation).
Embiid has played six consecutive games and physically, looks as good as we’ve seen him in over a year. The team’s plan for him appears to be working. We’ll find out what the next step of the plan is tomorrow.
