Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid‘s MRI showed no structural damage to his left knee, just a bone bruise, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne.
Embiid’s ACL and meniscus are fine, sources said, but there is no timeline yet on a return. He is still expected to miss time with the bone bruise, sources said, but there’s significant relief within Sixers that the injury isn’t something much worse.
Embiid left Friday night’s game when he hyperextended his left knee after landing with all his weight on his leg after a dunk in the third quarter.
Embiid was in the midst of the latest dominant performance of his MVP-caliber season, scoring 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting to go along with 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks in 20 minutes, when he caught a pass from Tobias Harris and flew in for a dunk to give Philadelphia an 80-60 lead with 6 minutes, 20 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
But as Embiid went down after the dunk, his full body weight landed on that left leg — causing it to hyperextend, sending him falling to the court and causing him to writhe around in pain.
After staying down for a few minutes, Embiid eventually got to his feet and walked off under his own power — though with a fairly pronounced limp — as he went straight back to the visitors locker room inside Washington’s Capital One Arena.
Embiid had a similarly scary situation last month when he hyperextended his right knee in an awkward fall against the Portland Trail Blazers after blocking an Enes Kanter layup. In that game, Embiid returned a few minutes later and dominated, scoring 31 first-half points in a matchup Philadelphia eventually lost.
The Sixers got Embiid back Friday night after both he and Simmons missed Thursday’s win in Chicago over the Bulls — as well as Sunday’s All-Star Game in Atlanta — because of contact tracing stemming from a barber both stars visited before heading to Atlanta.