PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia 76ers All-Star center Joel Embiid sat out the regular-season finale against Brooklyn on Sunday after he tweaked his surgically repaired left knee in a game last week.
The Sixers still had a chance entering the game of finishing as high as the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference. They have a shot at finishing fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth. Philadelphia’s only path to No. 5 is to win and for Indiana to lose.
Even against lowly Brooklyn, the path might have gotten more complicated without Embiid.
Embiid hurt his left knee in the final minutes of the first half of Friday night’s game against the Orlando Magic.
Embiid, who missed 29 games after suffering a torn meniscus in a Jan. 30 game at Golden State, landed awkwardly on a layup drive down the lane with about 1:40 left in the second quarter. While play continued, Embiid limped noticeably to midcourt and gave up on the play. He returned to the game in the second half and finished with 32 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists.
A year after he was named NBA MVP, Embiid finished the season averaging 34.7 points and 11 rebounds in just 39 games.
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Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid, left, dribbles the ball past Detroit Pistons' Jalen Duren during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Derik Hamilton)
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid grabs his left knee after the basket during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Orlando Magic, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid reacts after the shot during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Orlando Magic, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid, left, looks to make his move against Orlando Magic's Jonathan Isaac, right, during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Philadelphia. The 76ers won 125-113. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray.
The likely crash came as Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.
Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said what it called a “hard landing” happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Later, state TV put it farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory.
Traveling with Raisi were Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash," but others referred to either a “hard landing” or an “incident.”
Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Raisi’s condition in the hours afterward. However, hard-liners urged the public to pray for him. State TV aired images of hundreds of the faithful, some with their hands outstretched in supplication, praying at Imam Reza Shrine in the city of Mashhad, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites, as well as in Qom and other locations across the country. State television's main channel aired the prayers nonstop.
In Tehran, a group of men kneeling on the side of the street clasped strands of prayer beads and watched a video of Raisi praying, some of them visibly weeping.
“If anything happens to him we’ll be heartbroken,” said one of the men, Mehdi Seyedi. ”May the prayers work and may he return to the arms of the nation safe and sound.”
In comments aired on state TV, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said: “The esteemed president and company were on their way back aboard some helicopters and one of the helicopters was forced to make a hard landing due to the bad weather and fog."
"Various rescue teams are on their way to the region but because of the poor weather and fogginess it might take time for them to reach the helicopter.”
IRNA called the area a “forest” and the region is known to be mountainous as well. State TV aired images of SUVs racing through a wooded area and said they were being hampered by poor weather conditions, including heavy rain and wind. Rescuers could be seen walking in the fog and mist.
A rescue helicopter tried to reach the area where authorities believe Raisi's helicopter was, but it couldn't land due to heavy mist, emergency services spokesman Babak Yektaparast told IRNA. Late in the evening, Turkey's defense ministry announced that it had sent an unmanned arial vehicle and was preparing to send a helicopter with night vision capabilities to join the search-and-rescue efforts.
Long after the sun set, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi acknowledged that “we are experiencing difficult and complicated conditions” in the search.
“It is the right of the people and the media to be aware of the latest news about the president’s helicopter accident, but considering the coordinates of the incident site and the weather conditions, there is ‘no’ new news whatsoever until now,” he wrote on the social platform X. “In these moments, patience, prayer and trust in relief groups are the way forward.”
Khamenei himself also urged the public to pray.
“We hope that God the Almighty returns the dear president and his colleagues in full health to the arms of the nation," Khamenei said, drawing an “amen” from the worshipers he was addressing.
Raisi, 63, a hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary, is viewed as a protégé of Khamenei and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after Khamenei's death or resignation.
Raisi had been on the border with Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations built on the Aras River. The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations, including over a gun attack on Azerbaijan's Embassy in Tehran in 2023, and Azerbaijan's diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran's Shiite theocracy views as its main enemy in the region.
Iran flies a variety of helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet also largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. IRNA published images it described as Raisi taking off in what resembled a Bell helicopter, with a blue-and-white paint scheme previously seen in published photographs.
Raisi won Iran's 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been earlier detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.
President Joe Biden was briefed by aides on the Iran crash, but administration officials have not learned much more than what is being reported publicly by Iran state media, said a senior administration official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
People pray for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People pray for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
An Iranian woman prays for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
An Iranian woman prays for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People pray for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams' vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency via AP)
In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams and people are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency via AP)
In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi, Moj News Agency via AP)
In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams' vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi, Moj News Agency via AP)
In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams' vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency via AP)
In this photo provided by Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi takes off at the Iranian border with Azerbaijan after President Raisi and his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev inaugurated the dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without elaborating. (Ali Hamed Haghdoust/IRNA via AP)
In this photo provided by Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi takes off at the Iranian border with Azerbaijan after President Raisi and his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev inaugurated dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without elaborating. (Ali Hamed Haghdoust/IRNA via AP)
In this photo provided by the Azerbaijan's Presidential Press Office, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, left, shakes hands with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev during their meeting in the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office via AP)
Pilgrims pray for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at Imam Reza Shrine in the city of Mashhad, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without elaborating. (Mohammad Hasan Salavati/Shahraranews via AP)
Iranian pilgrims pray for President Ebrahim Raisi at Imam Reza Shrine in the city of Mashhad, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without elaborating. (Mohammad Hasan Salavati/Shahraranews via AP)
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi clap hands during the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi, right, shakes hands with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev during their meeting in the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi, right, shakes hands with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev during their meeting in the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
An Iranian state-TV news reader reads news on incident of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi, foreground, leaves the meeting room with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev, right, in the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi attends the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi, left, speaks with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev on the inauguration of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi attends a meeting with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev during the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
FILE- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi places his hands on his heart as a gesture of respect to the crowd during the funeral ceremony of the victims of Wednesday's bomb explosion in the city of Kerman about 510 miles (820 kms) southeast of the capital Tehran, Iran, Jan. 5, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, May 19, 2024, Iranian state television reported, without immediately elaborating. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
