It had been a long time since 76ers fans saw Joel Embiid on a basketball court. Longer still since the one-time NBA MVP looked dynamic, explosive and joyful there.<\/p>\n
So Friday night\u2019s 126-110 win over mostly reserves from the Minnesota Timberwolves was merely a 19-minute first step. But it was one that left the center, never bashful of showing his frustration, showing the opposite.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pretty good,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cObviously this is mostly a learning process, getting back, seeing everything, obviously feeling good on the court. And then how the body reacts. We are going to learn as we go, as every game comes by. Let\u2019s see how it feels tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The approach is still wait-and-see, day-by-day and whatever other hyphenate the 76ers concoct for Embiid\u2019s oft-battered body. But this week had a normal-feeling rhythm to it \u2013 of a player with a long-term injury floated as a possibility to play on Tuesday, then progressing Wednesday and Thursday before clearance Friday and a plan for the preseason finale.<\/p>\n
With the caveat that preseason stats are often meaningless, Embiid looked like something close to Embiid: 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting, 2-for-4 from 3-point range, eight assists, three steals, seven rebounds and four turnovers.<\/p>\n
Coach Nick Nurse called it less rusty than he expected from someone who hasn\u2019t played since Feb. 22, the last of Embiid\u2019s 19 games last year in which he was often labored, constantly struggling with various ailments and just not seeming to enjoy being out there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was about exactly where we wanted to be with the minutes, right in the ballpark with it,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cIt was some quick stints, and then obviously we\u2019re going to have to see where it goes from here. But that was the plan right there pretty much. It worked out good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Embiid played the first 6:16 of the game. He rested the balance of the first quarter, then a three-minute burst to start the second and another to close it. He also played the first six minutes of the third quarter to end his night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m most impressed with his shooting,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cSuch a long layoff, and he is such a great shooter. I tell him that all the time, you\u2019re such a great shooter. We need him shooting those shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
How his debut fits into the larger context is most tantalizing, though in need of restraint. Embiid was plus-12. He started with Adem Bona, a two-big look that allows the second-year center to handle the defensive dirty work and obviates the almost decade-long quest to find a floor-stretching power forward to complement Embiid.<\/p>\n
Embiid also played next to Dominick Barlow at the four. He got time with primary ballhandlers Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes.<\/p>\n
The eight assists speak to pace, the 76ers getting the ball up and down the court quickly. Maxey had 27 points on 10-for-17 shooting in 30 minutes. Edgecombe had 26 on 10-for-18, with five steals in proving a defensive menace. Grimes had 22 points in 26 bench minutes. Even without Paul George and Jared McCain, there are signs of how the pieces could fit together.<\/p>\n
Embiid remains the biggest piece, whose absence renders the rest academic. Friday was a positive step, albeit the first tentative one on a long pathway. But the things that needed to happen did, which start with Embiid\u2019s body and mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing that I felt was his joy and how happy he was to be out there and how happy I was for him to be out there,\u201d Maxey said. \u201cThe first thing I asked him before we went out there was like, hey are you excited? He\u2019s like, man I\u2019m so excited to be out there to go play. So I\u2019m happy for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in a good space mentally, physically,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cFirst of all, I\u2019m just happy to touch a basketball and play basketball and do what I love. When you don\u2019t get that, it\u2019s tough. But that\u2019s what I\u2019m most happy about. Tonight, that\u2019s all I kept thinking about. I\u2019m on the court, playing basketball, doing some good things, helping us win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It had been a long time since 76ers fans saw Joel Embiid on a basketball court. Longer still…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":312694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,3123,62,11104,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-312693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-top-stories-dtd","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115393686828430598","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}