Tim BontempsNov 11, 2025, 11:28 PM ET
- Tim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what’s impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.
PHILADELPHIA — After the 76ers beat the Boston Celtics 102-100 at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Tuesday night, Philadelphia announced that Joel Embiid is day-to-day with right knee soreness and that Paul George’s recovery from offseason knee surgery will be updated later this week.
The updates came after both players met with doctors earlier Tuesday, with Embiid getting imaging done on his right knee after saying he had soreness in it and George having a scheduled checkup in his recovery from surgery that occurred in July.
After the game, the team announced that George is continuing to strengthen his left quadricep in the wake of the surgery and that he’s in the “final stage” of his return to play. Then, 76ers coach Nick Nurse said during his postgame news conference that there are no structural issues with Embiid’s knee after he was examined and that he will be day-to-day.
Before Tuesday’s game, Nurse said there was “no expectations” — good or bad — that Embiid would miss extended time after he was a late addition to the injury report with the right knee soreness.
“No expectation at all,” Nurse said, when asked if there was a belief Embiid will sit out at least a couple of games. “He just reported a little soreness in his right knee. He’s had some imaging on that this afternoon, and the doctors are here tonight to go over that with him.”
Embiid, who played just 19 games last season because of ongoing issues with his left knee dating to the 2023-24 season, is averaging 19.7 points in 23.3 minutes across the six games he’s played in this season. The first four games he sat out before Tuesday, however, were all scheduled absences — including three games as part of back-to-back sets, something that is expected to continue.
Nurse said before the game that there wasn’t anything specific that came up with Embiid’s knee regarding what was causing the soreness, and that the team was waiting to see the imaging and what the doctors say about it.
Philadelphia is in a slow stretch of its schedule, with only one game — Friday in Detroit — in a five-day span. The next time the 76ers play after that will be Monday in South Philly against George’s former team, the LA Clippers.
After Tuesday’s win, the 76ers are 7-4 after it took them until Dec. 8 last season to reach that many wins. The victory also marked Philadelphia’s ninth clutch-time game — meaning a five-point contest within the final five minutes — out of 11 this season, with the 76ers being 6-3 in those matchups.
The nine clutch games are the most of any team in the NBA, while the six wins are tied for the most alongside the San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons, both of whom are 6-1 in the clutch this season.
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