PHILADELPHIA -- In the wake of yet another season ending in the second round of the playoffs and with Joel Embiid missing large chunks of the campaign while injured, the Philadelphia 76ers star center struck an optimistic tone about his health moving forward.
"I'm as confident as I've ever been," Embiid said Sunday after Philadelphia was routed 144-114 by the Knicks in Game 4 and swept out of the Eastern Conference semifinals on its home floor in front of a crowd full of New York fans. "I think, obviously, [my knee] was the biggest concern, and I'm not thinking about it; and as long as we keep doing what we've been doing, I won't have to think about it anymore.
"I'm looking at next year, obviously being more available. The personal goals, it doesn't matter. I know that if I'm available and I play as much as possible, everything else is going to follow."
Health is not exactly something Embiid has had much of over the course of his career. He has now played 490 games across the past 10 campaigns -- an average of 49 per season -- and that doesn't take into account missing the entire first two seasons of his career due to injury.
He also has had a litany of health issues in the playoffs, another trend that continued this season. Embiid had an emergency appendectomy a month ago, which he returned from two weeks ago, and missed Game 2 of this series with right hip and ankle injuries.
"All I can say is I commend him," 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. "He worked his ass off to get out there and play. I think it was really difficult for him, especially [in Game 3].
"I think he felt a little better today than he did in Game 3. But again, I'd just say he gave us everything he could."
Embiid had arguably the best three-game stretch of his playoff career in Games 5 to 7 against the Boston Celtics in the first round, leading Philadelphia back from down three games to one for the first time in franchise history and making the 76ers just the fourth team in NBA history to come back from down 3-1 when playing as the lower-seeded team in a series.
But after teammate Tyrese Maxey fell into Embiid's legs late in the fourth quarter of Game 7 in Boston, Embiid was never healthy against the Knicks, missing Game 2 and laboring through the other three contests. Embiid also said he was dealing with aftereffects of the appendectomy, which he returned from following a 17-day absence.
"Even the things that I've been dealing with, they've all been related to the surgery," said Embiid, who had 24 points, five rebounds and four assists in Sunday's loss and finished the postseason with averages of 24.0 points, 7.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists across seven games. "Because coming back early and the core is kind of weak, it's not an excuse, but everything else is affected. Everything else is out of place. So, you're looking at the hip, the adductor, everything's out of place."
"It kind of put me in a position where you don't have time to get ready to play," he continued, "and the little time that you have, you got to go jump straight to playoff basketball. But I feel like I still played as hard as I could. I fought hard. I tried to give us a better chance to win. Didn't happen.
"So, I look at myself, and I got to be better."
And yet, Embiid said that the troublesome left knee that cost him all but 19 games last season and helped limit him to 38 games this season has, in his mind, been figured out. At least to the point where, for the first time in a couple of years, he said he plans to be able to attack the offseason and work on his game rather than rehabbing.
That work can start as soon as Monday after New York made 12 of its first 13 3-point attempts and put on an absolute clinic Sunday, rolling to a seventh straight victory in these playoffs and eliminating the 76ers for a second time in three years on their home floor.
"They came out hot," Sixers forward Paul George said of the Knicks. "They threw haymakers early, and they kept throwing them."
As a result, Embiid and the 76ers found themselves losing in the second round of the playoffs for a sixth time in nine postseason trips across the big man's decade of playing in the NBA. The franchise's drought without a conference finals appearance also stretched to a quarter century.
"Tonight, I mean, they were just better," Embiid said of the Knicks. "I'm proud of this group. I feel like we play hard, we tried, as we have done all season, and at times it's OK to say that the other team was just better. Tonight, they made every shot, they made every single play; we didn't make shots.
"We just got to get better from top to bottom. Ownership, front office, players, coaches ... everybody just got to get better."
