Sixers star Joel Embiid discusses health, lineups with Adem Bona

PHILADELPHIA -- Everything the Philadelphia 76ers plan to do in the 2025-26 season comes down to the health of Joel Embiid. They will go as far as the big fella will take them when the playoffs roll around in April as he, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George are the leaders of this group.

As the Sixers continue to move forward with their season, the goal and the hope is that the minutes will continue to increase for Embiid. He played a season-high 40 minutes in Monday's overtime loss to the Denver Nuggets as he scored 32 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.

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"It feels good," Embiid said after the loss. "Obviously, 40 minutes—I don't remember the last time I played (40)—probably the playoffs against the Knicks. Yeah, that was a lot. Hopefully, that keeps going. I feel pretty good. I wish we would've gotten the win. Especially, because our last couple of games, we fought, kind of found ourselves so tonight was disappointing."

If there was one big issue for Embiid in the contest with the Nuggets, it was the turnovers. He had six of them with two coming in the fourth quarter and one in overtime. The Sixers have experimented with lineups with him and Adem Bona together on the floor which have produced encouraging results. Per PBP Stats, the Sixers have a net rating of plus-14.55 when they're on the floor together.

However, there is still work to be done as the spacing wasn't great in the Bona and Embiid lineups and the big fella noticed it.

"It’s tough," Embiid explained. "I think we just got to have a better basketball IQ. I think they were fronting the post. That's just straight—that's high school stuff. Flash, I’m most likely not even going to be open. Corner guys mostly going to be open. We did that a few times."

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Only in his second season, Bona is looking to continue finding his stride on the floor. The constant energy he plays with is a big help for this group and the Sixers will continue experimenting with the double-big lineup. Embiid and the Sixers just need to continue growing with the pairing in the frontcourt.

"I felt like we should have probably kept going to that because everything else, there was really no driving lanes, whether it was for Tyrese or VJ (Edgecombe)," Embiid finished. "I think that was one of our main sources of offense tonight. Q (Quentin Grimes) hit a couple corner 3s. Obviously, them kind of giving Bona that shot kind of makes it hard to make that outer pass, but, yeah, but we had a few chances to win that game."

The Sixers will look to bounce back on Wednesday night when they play host to the Washington Wizards.

This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Sixers star Joel Embiid discusses health, lineups with Adem Bona