Skip to content
Sports
Link copied to clipboard

Last-second win over Blazers, but a scare when Embiid falls hard

THE EMOTIONS that Joel Embiid can elicit from 76ers fans were on full display in the span of seconds Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers at the Wells Fargo Center.

THE EMOTIONS that Joel Embiid can elicit from 76ers fans were on full display in the span of seconds Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers at the Wells Fargo Center.

And that was just the beginning of what became an emotional roller-coaster of an evening.

Holding the ball at the foul line extended to the right of the basket with just over seven minutes left in the third quarter, the 7-2, 265-pounder took one power dribble past Mason Plumlee and threw down perhaps the most thunderous dunk of his season. But as the crowd erupted, Embiid crumpled to the floor and grasped his left knee, which buckled awkwardly backward as he landed.

The deafening noise quickly fell silent as the maestro of "The Process" grimaced and rolled on the floor. As he rose, he ran in place for a couple of steps and the sigh of relief from the sellout crowd created a breeze from all directions of about 20 mph, as he headed into the locker room.

Embiid returned in the fourth for a bit, but came down gingerly after a basket early in the period and didn't return to the game after departing with 8 minutes, 50 seconds remaining, with what the team said was a precautionary measure for a hyperextended knee.

As the crowd remained hushed in the wake of Embiid's fall, the Sixers scratched and clawed their way through a dogfight of a fourth quarter. As boisterous as the 19,476 spectators were for Embiid's slam, they topped it with an explosive roar when Robert Covington nailed a 28-foot three-pointer with 4.5 seconds to go that gave the Sixers a 93-92 win for their eighth victory in their past 10 games.

"I'm fine. I'm good. The knee's fine," a smiling Embiid said following the game. "I knew it was OK. I just landed the wrong way. The front office cares about my future, so they just shut it down, but I was fine."

His leg appeared to bow backward in the fall, a gruesome scene that has produced many serious knee injuries in sports through the years. Somehow, Embiid seems to have escaped one.

"I'm kind of flexible," he said.

And his teammates proved to be so, also. After a jumper by Damian Lillard (30 points) upped Portland's lead to 88-83 with 3:20 remaining, it appeared the Sixers' recent run of good fortune wouldn't be there, just like their star player. But Gerald Henderson and T.J. McConnell hit big shots before Covington nailed a three with 38.2 seconds to go to make it 91-90 with 38.2 to play.

After Lillard made one of two free throws with 14.7 to go, the Sixers scrambled their way down the court, without a timeout, and Covington hit his second game-winner in less than three weeks; his other was a buzzer-beating layup against Minnesota on Jan. 3.

"T.J. found me in rhythm and nine times out of 10, my shots, when I catch them in rhythm, I let them fly," said Covington, who finished with 22 points. "It was the last few seconds of the game. I just let it fly. I felt good about and to see it go in. It was just a sigh of relief.

"The atmosphere is contagious now. Joel went down early in the fourth, and other guys stepped up and filled the void. He's the key to our team. That just shows how good our mentality is now. There's no drop-off. We locked in."

A 16-point first-quarter blitz by Lillard helped Portland (18-27) jump out to a 56-43 lead at the half. But the Sixers' defense held the Trail Blazers to only 36 points in the second half, and the offense, despite a 7-for-36 shooting night from the subs (19 points), did just enough to overcome the void left by Embiid.

Ersan Ilyasova led the Sixers with 24 points, while Embiid collected 18 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and four blocks in his 22:04 of play. Embiid's streak of 10 consecutive games of scoring 20 or more points in less than 30 minutes of play ended; that is the most by a player in NBA history.

"You sit there on the sideline and you just feel them, if there is an advantage, do you feel like it's scrambled enough to just let it play out," coach Brett Brown said of the final offensive series, when Covington bombed his game-winner. "A few times in our recent games, you could see it is scrambled and not completely set. Our guys, to their credit, they're feeling good about themselves, and we're winning here at home, and we found a way to, again, win ugly.

"This game was completely about our second-half defense. It had nothing to do with much more with that. You have to give our guys, without Joel, a lot of credit to be able to win here at home under the circumstances we were in."

An emotional night for all.

Meanwhile, Brown said the team will know more about Embiid's injury soon. The center will not travel with the team to Atlanta, where they'll play the Hawks on Saturday night. Jahlil Okafor is expected to start at center for the Sixers and get big minutes, with Nerlens Noel backing him up.

cooneyb@phillynews.com

@BobCooney76

Blog: philly.com/Sixersblog