Postgame 76ers | Head Coach Nick Nurse on Joel Embiid getting back into game shape: He’s ready

Postgame 76ers | Head Coach Nick Nurse on Joel Embiid getting back into game shape: He’s ready

Thought he really impacted it was defensively late but um yeah he looked pretty good for not playing for a couple months that’s for sure what were you thinking when he was uh running down the court with the ball after that steel uh go faster no get away from that guy

You know I did I you know I didn’t know if he was going to you know keep going and try to take take him on um but he did so all is all is okay I hope obviously obviously he was pretty winded at the end of the sence and what

Did you think of the way he was able to come up with both that play and to get that foul to play before to get those points yeah I mean I thought I thought again like our defense we started making some plays there Kelly jar a few loose

Joel obviously Jarred that one loose and and again I think that been through this with him like early in the season where you you look at Joel in the first half and you’re thinking like like he doesn’t have a lot of condition left here and then somehow it

Seems like you don’t notice it as much in the second half and and he was and I thought again I thought it was good we we talked about a in the fourth like one little thre minute stint and then tried to you know another maybe four to finish

It I thought we were at 21 at the time and I was kind of thinking maybe maybe nine he had nine left but I think we we got it maybe a little less than that so I think the break in between helped him to your point

Yeah give you guys a huge went to the fourth quarter what do you think kind of was for him well he we we were kind of under a little bit I I think our offense was like super clunky tonight right just super clunky and he just kind of fired a

Couple and nailed him you know like like that like we we were kind of like really needing some kind of boost and he just kind of rolled into a couple in a row and then all of a sudden he was he was going and then we put the ball in his hands

You know again I think I think we’re still trying to figure out all this stuff and and he’s one guy that can turn the corner put a lot of pressure on the rim so they’re going to have to decide if Joel will set a good screen they’re

Going to have to decide how they’re going to play him right um we ended up going hitting Joel in the role most of it um which turned out okay too I think there was some other plays to be made but again it just everything’s just a little off and a little clunky

Offensively how much of that do you think is about these guys basically relearning how to play for two months without Joel and then you throw him in and a lot of things change pieces move around yeah there certainly got to be that factor of like what the heck’s you

Know going on I mean when I pulled Kyle into the office before the game to say hey Joel’s playing and he his first thing was like man I don’t know how to play with this dude and I’m like you’ll be you’ll be all right you’re going to

You’re going to be okay out there just you know just go out there and and play through it and feel your way through the game it’s one two give them some credit they were playing they were playing really good defense they really do a good job on a lot of things they they

Help each other a lot and they recover well right um I had a third thing too but um I can’t remember right now he’s in the past obviously you didn’t have him before but he’s had a lot of success with JJ reic and South Curry both doing a lot of you know

Handoff stuff with Shooters seemed like that was a little clunky at times with Buddy till he was able to get to some of that is that something particular you hope that over these next couple weeks you can really get some chemistry with those guys on that stuff yeah for sure I

Think I think he’s got that chemistry with Tyrese like he really drops a lot of stuff off for Tyrese to Sprint into like he used to do with reic um but yeah that would be definitely a hope with Buddy and and again I think it’s like you know sometimes like like with buddy

I just think he’s got to stay patient I really believe that if Joel’s out there he’s going to get his share right so he doesn’t not you know don’t need to run around and do a zillion things I think I think they’ll they’ll come to him on some double team extra

Pass situations and that’s really what what he needs to needs to well wait for I think what you could have been through without him the last couple of months and what you have think to fight through and fight through and fight through what emotional impact do you think his return

Had on this team well I think um obviously it was nice to get this win tonight and I I thought we were kind of lethargic oh yeah my third point was we’ve played a million games like we’ve played a million games like this last you know just like every other day for

32 straight days or something so that was again I thought I thought that was showing a lot but we found some energy to play like really hard in the last six minutes um so I I felt like we were not like there wasn’t a lot of juice and a lot of

Energy going on there for quite a of the game but and we found it and stayed in theame I thought we did a good job of like just staying there they were they were playing very well didn’t seem like we were getting many breaks and we just

Kind of just kind of kept playing and then we found some energy and made a couple defensive plays and we started playing good you mentioned telling Kyle like you know like don’t worry about it you’re going to figure it out how much easier does it make your job when you

Have a guy out there with like him with his experience and joelle’s talent then just run actions themselves and two call their own plays and you can kind of sit back and sort of Elsewhere yeah I mean it’s it’s it’s um really good I think

Kyle again is is um able to do some things on the Fly even though we’ve never gone through them or you know we’ll we’ll come up with something and you know like like we have a lot of moments where we say hey remember remember when we used to run the you

Know like like this and you know like tonight I was like like you come off there with some Pace you can hit him in the pocket and he goes oh yeah like surge I said yeah it’s just like he’s going to be in that pocket you know and

He’s going to he’s going to knock those down you know so in little plays and little screens like Kyle’s an incredible screener I I I got to get into some packages there where he’s screening to free Joel up and then I’m back to me seeing a zillion

Miss spacing things that we got to fix to and hopefully we can get to some of that while Joel while Joel was effective he was also understandably fighting fatigue uh you got six games to go before whatever you participate in how long do you think it’ll take for him to

Get back into some decent basketball shape um you know normally I would say it’s going to take a bit but again I just have seen him like appear to be conditioning he needs to be have some conditioning and that changes pretty quick for him right so like normally I

Would say oh you know couple weeks week and a half whatever but you know it wouldn’t surprise me hearing about one more game or two that he’s ready to roll if if everything turns out okay today tomorrow looks like it’s in a really good yes he’s lost some weight he he

Worked hard he’s Lo he’s slim you know he did really work hard to try to maintain his conditioning and and uh he’s done a really good job with that y thanks guys okay thanks thanks for revisiting all right it’s been quite a season for Joel embiid unfortunately no action for two months

January 30th sustained that knee injury a torn meniscus that required surgery was averaging north of 30 points per game better than 50 from the field 11 boards as well his impact evident immediately in the Sixers win over the Thunder Martin here alongside Joe muso and I don’t know what city is feeling

Better than Philadelphia right now while one former MVP got into the swing of things in a big way across the street another gave his team a much needed boost in his return yeah Joel embiid back on wood for the first time in more than two months the big fella trying to

Put an end to a Philly slide that saw a three seed turn into an eight but with the process bag in progress could the Sixers sees momentum down the stretch embiid making it official at least the swix Sixers Twitter did saying I’m back was an odd start to the day and be listed

At for for it’s all skill B B I never never miss a shot an ally has been defeated go on please keep your mouth shut you have been defeated an ally has been defeated an ally has been defeated it’s over you have defeated an enemy your tower has been

Destroyed acquiring Target out with the old your team has destroyed a tower enemy Ultimate Enemy double kill shut down I always find my you have defeated an enemy combine back fore for the past is a dream tomorrow is a new day First Blood an enemy has been defeated my life reborn for the

Battle unable an enemy has been defeated they need a sword I’m just a person ultimate just in time you have been defeated my life reborn for the battle up here we go one of these days I’ll find my old shelf an ally has been defeated you have defeated an

Enemy your tower has been destroyed you can’t get away you have been defeated an enemy has been defeated onslot my life reborn for the battle an enemy has been defeated that different you have defeated an enemy your team has destroyed a tower

Postgame 76ers | Head Coach Nick Nurse on Joel Embiid getting back into game shape: He’s ready