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I'm sure the last thing Philadelphia 76ers fans wanted to see while staring down the barrel of a potential season-ending Game 5 tonight in New York was addendums to the injury report, but hey, it's the Sixers. What have you come to expect? Joel Embiid missed shootaround this morning with a migraine. His status for tonight's game remains questionable. Status alert: Kelly Oubre (illness) didn't attend shootaround Tuesday. We'll start with Embiid, who revealed last week that he had been dealing with bad migraines prior to the Bell's palsy diagnosis. I'm not going to speculate on medical information I'm not privy to or knowledgeable about to begin with, but studies have shown correlation between migraines and the development of Bell's palsy. You feel for Joel, who has been gamely battling during this series with both the Bell's palsy issue and the recovery from the meniscus surgery. Depending on the severity, migraines can be a completely debilitating issue. Notable occurrences that come to mind in NBA lore include Scottie Pippen missing a Game 7 loss to the Detroit Pistons in the 1990 Eastern Conference Finals, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar suffering six migraines in nine days during the 1984 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. Obviously, there's no way to know when and to what degree the migraine will subside. We can only hope Embiid has recovered by tonight and is able to take the floor. Meanwhile, we don't know the extent of Kelly Oubre Jr.'s illness, but being sick enough to miss shootaround certainly isn't ideal. The margins have been razor thin in each game of this series and any slight drop in effectiveness could be the difference. We're now talking about two of the team's three leading scorers during these playoffs not being well enough to shoot around the morning before the most important game of the season. They say it's darkest before the dawn. Well, things seem pretty dark for the Sixers. Hopefully, the dawn comes tonight. Editor's update: Both Joel Embiid and Kelly Oubre, Jr. are in. The Sixers' star big man and starting small forward will be in the starting lineup.
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