PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers were in a very tough situation on Friday as they returned home to host the Miami Heat down 0-2 in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. They played the first two games without superstar big man Joel Embiid as he was working through a concussion and an orbital fracture.
The big fella returned on Friday and he didn’t have a huge offensive game as he had 18 points on 5-for-12 shooting and 11 rebounds, but the impact on the floor was huge. The Heat weren’t able to get into the paint as easily as they did in Games 1 and 2 and that was a huge difference in this game.
Philadelphia held Miami to 35.1% shooting ad they were just 7-for-30 from deep as the Sixers were able to handle them relatively easy in this one.
After the 99-79 win, Embiid reacted to his game and how the Sixers were able to get this done.
Embiid on how he’s feeling
“I’m OK. I feel pretty good.”
On how tough the previous six days have been
“It was a struggle. Really because of the concussion and dealing with a bunch of symptoms, but I’m glad it went away and I’m glad that I’m back.”
On when he was cleared from concussion protocol
“They cleared me yesterday (Thursday) and today obviously was still seeing how I feel. Especially, after working out yesterday so it was really about seeing if there was gonna be any sort of reaction or if I was gonna have any sort of symptoms from the concussion, but it was fine.”
On how he played
“I didn’t think I had a lot of energy, honestly. I was really trying to really get through it and kinda just use my presence out there as a decoy. I feel like what I pride myself on is really defensively and I feel that’s where my presence is really felt on the defensive end so that’s one of the main reasons why playing I thought I could have a huge…
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