PHILADELPHIA 76ers center Joel Embiid said his left knee, hampered by tendinitis, remains painful but he intends to play more minutes in the second-round playoff series against the Toronto Raptors than he did in the first round.
Embiid played in four of the five games of the series against Brooklyn — he missed Game 3 — and averaged about 24 minutes per game. In the regular season, he averaged 33.7 minutes per game.
“It’s still not there. It’s still trying to get better,” Embiid said about his knee after Saturday’s shoot around, hours before Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
“But that’s an issue that’s going to be there at least all playoffs until I actually get some real time to get some rest and work on myself.”
In fact, it’s an issue that forced him to miss a stretch of 14 of 24 games toward the end of the season.
“It’s hard because I’m known for playing through anything and pushing, pushing it,” Embiid said. “And in some situations like Game 3, I couldn’t go because it was too much. But like I said, I just got to keep managing it and see how I feel and then go from there.” — Reuters
