{"id":712957,"date":"2026-04-18T05:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T05:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712957\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T05:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T05:36:09","slug":"76ers-announced-expected-joel-embiid-decision-for-game-1-vs-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712957\/","title":{"rendered":"76ers announced expected Joel Embiid decision for Game 1 vs. Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It remains to be seen when, and if, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/philadelphia-76ers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> star center Joel Embiid will be able to return to game action after undergoing an emergency appendectomy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But, we know that his return won&#8217;t come in Game 1 of Philadelphia&#8217;s first-round series against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/boston-celtics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Celtics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Nurse confirms that Joel Embiid won&#8217;t play in Game 1 vs. Celtics\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nick Nurse <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sixerswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/sixers\/2026\/04\/17\/sixers-injury-news-nick-nurse-talks-joel-embiid-before-celtics-series\/89661675007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">confirmed as much<\/a> during a practice session leading up to the series opener.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m preparing for Sunday&#8217;s game, and I know he&#8217;s not playing in that one,&#8221; Nurse said of Embiid. &#8220;So, that&#8217;s all. We&#8217;re just like zeroed in on trying to see can we go in there and get ready to battle and fight and execute as best we can?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And then we&#8217;ll start figuring\u2014anything that changes, you know, the series becomes a series. Anything that changes starts probably right in the middle of that game, and then we take it from there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As a team, the Sixers should probably just embrace the idea that Embiid won&#8217;t be coming back, and then if he does, it will be a pleasant surprise.\u00a0At this point, no timeline for a return for Embiid has been provided by the organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Even though he didn&#8217;t play in Philadelphia&#8217;s Play-In victory over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/orlando-magic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Orlando Magic<\/a>, Embiid still found a way to <a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/philadelphia-76ers\/news\/how-joel-embiid-provided-76ers-boost-vs-magic-without-even-playing\/691a587de682925e1f6ddcfe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">give the team a boost<\/a> by simply being there with his teammates. Perhaps he&#8217;ll be able to have a similar impact in the first game against Boston.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More Philadelphia 76ers news:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It remains to be seen when, and if, Philadelphia 76ers star center Joel Embiid will be able to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,6,678,207,3817],"class_list":{"0":"post-712957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","13":"tag-philadelphia76ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116424093026875935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}