{"id":603111,"date":"2026-04-24T06:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/603111\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T06:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:29:18","slug":"76ers-upgrade-embiid-to-doubtful-ahead-of-game-3-vs-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/603111\/","title":{"rendered":"76ers upgrade Embiid to doubtful ahead of Game 3 vs. Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">The <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/phi\/philadelphia-76ers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> upgraded star center <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3059318\/joel-embiid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Joel Embiid<\/a> to doubtful Thursday evening ahead of Friday&#8217;s Game 3 at home against the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/bos\/boston-celtics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Boston Celtics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Embiid had an emergency appendectomy two weeks ago in Houston, the latest in a series of unfortunate injury breaks across his career. He has been out since, although he appeared on the bench for last week&#8217;s play-in victory at home against the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/orl\/orlando-magic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Orlando Magic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He remained back in Philadelphia for the 76ers&#8217; first two games of their first-round series against the rival Celtics, a blowout loss Sunday in Game 1 and a comeback win Tuesday in Game 2 that left the series even at a game apiece heading into Friday night&#8217;s showdown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Embiid, who averaged 26.9 points and 7.7 rebounds in 38 games this season, began a strength and conditioning program Monday and then participated in parts of practice Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;We&#8217;re, obviously, really hopeful, and I think he&#8217;s really hopeful,&#8221; 76ers coach Nick Nurse told reporters after Thursday&#8217;s practice. &#8220;He wants to play, and we want him to play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how close we are to that at this point, but I think there&#8217;s some progress being made.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia 76ers upgraded star center Joel Embiid to doubtful Thursday evening ahead of Friday&#8217;s Game 3 at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[262366,150741,352,355,3,2113,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-603111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-262366","9":"tag-embiid-joel","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}