Philadelphia 76ers franchise cornerstone Joel Embiid made his highly anticipated return to the court on Tuesday night and helped Philly secure a 109-105 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Wells Fargo Arena.
Embiid did his part, finishing with 24 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals and 6 turnovers, but when speaking with NBA journalists following the game, Embiid admitted after the game that the injury took it’s toll on him.
“Usually, when I have injuries, I just tell myself, move on to the next one, get better, and then fix it,” Embiid said, according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “But this one took a toll mentally, being depressed … It was not a good one.
“So, still not where I’m supposed to be, especially mentally, but I just love to play and love basketball and I want to play and any chance that I can be out there, I’m going to take it.”
Embiid elaborated, adding that the injury left him feeling depressed.
“For some reason this injury was just … It was disappointing,” he continued. “It was depressing. It took me a while to get over it, and I still haven’t gotten over it. So just got to take it day by day, look at the positive.
“I’m back. So, hopefully every single day, try to get better and get back to myself.”
The Sixers struggled without Embiid in the lineup, but as they eye the playoffs the focus now is to ease Embiid back into his normal usage and ramping him up in the playoffs.
“I think minutes-wise that was probably where I thought we would end up,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said. “I thought we got a good start into the half and it mapped out, something like that, minutes-wise. I thought the biggest impact, he scored some, I thought he passed the ball really well, but again, when we start amping up our defense in the last six minutes he was down there again as I talked about before the game. Some of those [Thunder] drives didn’t look as productive, so that to me is where I really thought he impacted the game.
“He looked pretty good for not playing for a couple of months, that’s for sure.”
“I think it’s all about how it responds,” 76ers forward Tobias Harris said. “Hopefully everything goes well.
“We just got to take it day by day, see how the knee responds tomorrow. We got a big one in Miami. If I’m good to go, obviously go. But I think, it’s actually funny, the timeline was eight weeks and I’m back on that eight weeks. So I think I’ve learned a lot over the years and I got to take care of myself, got to stay healthy because I still have a long career ahead of this.”
