CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Nick Nurse, the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, conveyed a sense of hope regarding Joel Embiid’s recovery from a recent sinus fracture. He noted that this injury is “not nearly as severe” as the two prior facial fractures the 2023 NBA Most Valuable Player has dealt with throughout his career.
Embiid sustained the injury during the first half of a game against the Indiana Pacers, which ended in a 121-107 defeat for the 76ers. The injury occurred when he was struck in the face by teammate Bennedict Mathurin while attempting to secure a defensive rebound. The team announced that Embiid will be reassessed in a week’s time.
Due to his injury, Embiid is set to miss the upcoming game on Monday against the Charlotte Hornets. “The only thing that I can compare it to, but I wasn’t here, but he certainly had those other ones that were a lot worse,” Nurse commented before the game against the Hornets. “It’s not nearly as severe as those two from what they tell me. So I guess that’s good because those were pretty tough — those two — and they say it’s not as bad as that.”
In 2018, Embiid fractured his left orbital bone and suffered a concussion after colliding with teammate Markelle Fultz. This incident kept him out for the last eight games of the regular season and the initial two games of the NBA Playoffs. Then, in April 2022, he was sidelined again after an elbow from Pascal Siakam caused him to fracture his right orbital during a series-clinching Game 6 victory, leading to his absence in the first two games of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
This season, Embiid has played in only six games due to ongoing knee issues and is averaging 20.3 points per game, a significant drop from his usual performance. Nurse added, “Listen, it’s hard enough for him to get himself ready to go. The knee after the surgery and all that stuff is enough to focus on. This isn’t going to help his ability to condition. He’s going to have to recover from some of this stuff — the breathing isn’t going to be easy for a little bit, so obviously it makes it really difficult. … He’s just going to have to deal with it. Hopefully, he’s getting all of these little things out of the way so he can focus on his recovery of the knee and get back out there for a stretch of games.”
