With 34 points and nine assists, Joel Embiid made another loud return to action for the Sixers on Friday night, leading them to a home victory over a undermanned Charlotte Hornets team. Embiid was able to show flashes of brilliance throughout his 31 minutes of action, and got candid when speaking at his locker after the game about how challenging this season has been for him so far.
Meanwhile, Paul George spoke in the locker room about what he has learned about Embiid in his limited chances to share the floor with the former NBA MVP and shared the one area where he feels he needs to get better to accommodate Embiid — and confirmed that he is planning to play on Saturday night in Cleveland despite logging nearly 39 minutes on Friday.
After yet another brilliant two-way showing, Kelly Oubre Jr. talked about his refined on-court approach. Additionally, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse discussed the continued success of Embiid and Tyrese Maxey in two-man actions which devastated Charlotte's defense.
In this edition of Sixers soundbites, enjoy this batch of the most noteworthy quotes from Friday night's postgame scene:
MORE: Sixers-Hornets recap
• Embiid on how his face felt in his return and whether or not wearing a mask bothered him:
"I felt okay. Still obviously recovering… As long as it gets better every day, then I'll be good."
• Embiid on how he has been able to handle the mental toll his injuries have taken on him this season:
"Talking to somebody, get some help, see if that helps. Really just stop asking myself questions. Instead of feeling bad about myself. It's kind of hard when you get in those moments to not feel bad about yourself, especially when you know who you are and what you can accomplish. But, you know, it's just not the way it is. The lesson I learned is to stop feeling bad about myself — try to stop feeling bad about myself… I have a hard time disappointing people, which I'm working on… I like to please people, so I've just got to keep going."
• George on how much it helps to have Embiid on the floor and what had surprised him most about playing with Embiid:
"He does make the game so easy. A lot of stuff is just plays that we weren't in sync on, but we'll get that as we get more games under our belt. But it's great, man. He's a cheat code."
• George on what has surprised him most about playing with Embiid:
"He's a willing passer, to be honest. He just makes the game easy, you know? He's a little bit like playing with Kawhi [Leonard] in LA. Like, they play at their pace, but we're all playing their game. He just has a way of manipulating the game and making the right reads. It's fun for me, being a guy that's thrived in isolation stuff. Sometimes the easy ones are there that I'm not seeing that he's seeing. He's a willing passer, and that's something I've got to get used to: being a better cutter and reading space. I've got to be better with that. He's a heck of a passer."
• George on his excitement to play in both legs of the team's back-to-back, confirming the expectation that he will play on Saturday night in Cleveland:
"I want to try to continue to keep fighting. My body is allowing me to, so I just want to continue to keep momentum going with this unit. We've been playing well, and I feel good. So I'm going to continue to lace it up."
• Oubre on how he has been able to improve his steal numbers while also having his fouls go down, after dealing with lots of foul trouble early in the season:
"Just being smart, being disciplined. A lot of times, my fouls would be being out of position, still trying to reach and get the ball. But now I'm sliding my feet better. I'm able to time drives up because I'm being more physical on the initial part of drives. I just try to time it up, right? I think earlier this season, my body position was off and my timing. So I'm kind of figuring it out a little bit, though, but don't jinx me, man."
• Oubre on what the Sixers did right on offense during a first quarter in which they scored 41 points:
"Ball movement, pace, and we weren't trying to force-feed. I think we were just kind of getting into our secondary action, and if that didn't work out, then we'll get to a set. And I think the flow and the pace was really good to start the game off. Obviously, Charlotte is a team, we've played them enough to know they're never going to stop fighting. So they made their runs, we made our runs, but we just kind of stayed poised throughout the whole game."
• Oubre on the importance of Embiid's presence:
"Amazing, man. I was just being vocal with Joel tonight. He's battling a lot, and he fights for us. Just to have his teammates have his back and give him pointers here and there, I think that was one of the things that he needed tonight, and he put us on his back in the fourth quarter and did what Joel does."
• Nurse on the brilliance of Embiid's two-man game with Maxey:
"It's really good, but the perspective that I really like is the way Tyrese gets moving on them. His start-stop-start is really good. He goes one direction, plants — he's able to get the ball back because he's got freedom of movement, which is created by the threat of Joel with the ball. Plenty of good actions off of that. They obviously like to play it, sometimes it's five times in one possession. It usually gets us something really good. But I love it because I think it frees up Tyrese for four or five threes a game, which I like."
• Nurse on running the team's late-game offense through Embiid in his first game back on the floor:
"I think there's no hesitation to trust him."
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