Finding break for Embiid high on Brown’s priority list
PHILADELPHIA » Brett Brown knows what to expect when Joel Embiid is told again by Sixers’ scientists that he will need a load-management moment.
“It’s not going to come,” Brown said Wednesday, before a game against Memphis, “without a fight.”
That scheduled main event is not likely to happen Thursday.
Though Brown and the Sixers are maintaining their option to rest him before the end of the regular season, Embiid played against the Grizzlies Wednesday night and is expected to start Thursday in Orlando. That will leave the Sixers with 11 remaining regular-season games, including backto-back challenges April 3-4 against visiting Brooklyn and in Detroit, and in their final two games of the season, April 10-11 in Atlanta and at home against Milwaukee.
With the Sixers “on the warpath” to secure a home-court postseason advantage, according to Brown, playoff seeding implications could affect the decision of when to rest Embiid. But he will be rested, Brown believes.
“I think there will be a game when we could do that,” Brown said. “But he is just so ridiculously competitive. And he so much wants to please the fans of Philadelphia that he will want to play.”
Injury-troubled throughout his four-year NBA career, Embiid has not missed a game since Feb. 14. But according to Brown, he rarely practices, if at all. With that, the goal of having the center at peak production on game nights has worked.
“Physically,” Brown added, “we are doing our best to deliver him to a playoff situation at the end of the year.”
*** Whenever the Sixers sputter, Robert Covington seems to be a convenient target.
That’s because the critics are missing key point: He defends. Well.
“Is it unfair? Yes,” Brown said. “He’s our Swiss Army knife defensively. And you may see him play some ‘four’ if we’re lucky to get to the playoffs. Who knows how that works out? But he guards point guards. He can guard ‘four’ men. He can guard twos and threes. We feel his lack of performance, if you want to call it that, when he doesn’t make shots. But he is one of our elite defensive players.”
Covington has shot well lately, going 25for-44 a in his five games prior to Wednesday, including 16-for-33 from the arc.
“My teammates have been finding me with pretty much the same shots, but I’ve been changing up my workouts, switching it up,” Covington said.”
*** Former All-Delco guard Tyreke Evans is on an irregular work schedule as he battles a rib injury. He did not play Wednesday for Memphis, but will play Thursday in Charlotte, according to coach J.B. Bickerstaff.
Evans has had a solid season in his first season with the Grizzlies, averaging 19.5 points, 5.1 rebounds and 5.2 assists.
“He was given an opportunity here to be put in a position to be really successful and he took full advantage of it,” Bickerstaff said. “So it is a compliment to him and the work he put in over the summer. When we first started the season, he was in the conversation for Sixth Man of the Year. Then injuries took place and he had to become a starter. And he can’t just be a bucketgetter. He has to be a floor general. And he goes out and shows that he can do both.”
“He can score, but he can organize and he can get other people involved, too.”
*** Ben Simmons had nine triple-doubles before Wednesday, the most by a Sixer Wilt Chamberlain had 31 in 1967-68.
“I think people get caught up in how many points I score every game,” Simmons said. “It’s not about that. It’s about the amount of points we are getting as a team and how many stops we get and how many points we allow the other team to get. People are always going to say I need to do certain things, but I know what I’m capable of and what I’m really good at.” Covington, for one, has been impressed. “I mean, he’s a 6-10 point guard,” he said. “Nobody in the NBA has that. He does so many different things on the court. He guards really well, better than people think, so that allows us to add another gear to our defense.
“Ben adds so much to the game. He hasn’t even touched his true potential yet.”
*** NOTES » After an NBA review, Embiid had a career-high 20 rebounds, not 19, in a victory Monday over Charlotte. He also scored 25 points, so is the first 76er to produce a 20-20 game since Samuel Dalembert had 20 points and 20 rebounds, Jan. 5, 2010. … Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (knee), Markelle Fultz (shoulder) and Furkan Korkmaz (foot) were scratched. since