Five things to learn from New York’s comeback in Game 1 of the Knicks-Sixers series

Embiid launches himself, falls to the ground, and then returns.

The topic of “how well will Joel Embiid play” rapidly became the most important question in the series, and it swiftly shifted to “how much will he play?”

Embiid had the most memorable moment of the evening when, late in the second quarter, he threw the ball over the backboard to himself, grabbed it with one hand, and dunk it over OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson. This was the highlight of the night. After that, however, Embiid landed on his left leg, turned around, grabbed his left knee, and then went to the ground.

However, it is important to note that the left knee is the same knee that required meniscus surgery in February, which resulted in Embiid missing 29 consecutive games. After going to the locker room with 2 minutes and 37 seconds remaining in the half, things appeared to be looking rather gloomy for the Sixers, who were trailing by 12 points at the break against the only team that had not lost a single game in games that they had led by at least five points at the halftime break.

After that, Embiid came from the locker room only a few moments before the official start of the third quarter. Following the fact that Philadelphia failed to make a shot on its initial possession of the second half, the team went on to score 32 points on its subsequent 15 trips down the court, therefore transforming a 14-point deficit into a six-point lead.

There was also the highlight of that run that was given by Embiid, which was an incredible dime to Kelly Oubre Jr. on the break.

The Sixers were victorious in the first and third quarters by a combined score of 24 points (70-46), but they were defeated in the second and fourth quarters by a combined score of 31 points (65-34).

The 36 minutes and 33 seconds that Embiid spent on the court was slightly less than the time that he spent playing in the Sixers’ Play-In victory on Wednesday, but it was still his second-highest total in the seven games that he has played since returning from injury treatment.

Due to the fact that Embiid elected not to talk with the media after the game, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse did not have any postgame updates to share with the media.