The wait continues.

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid was ruled out at the last second Saturday afternoon due to knee soreness before the Sixers’ only game this season at the Denver Nuggets, according to a report by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, extending the streak of years Embiid has not played on Nikola Jokic’s home turf.

Embiid, the defending MVP of the league, has not appeared in a game at Ball Arena since Nov. 8, 2019. Unless the Nuggets and 76ers face off in the NBA Finals, the next chance won’t be until the 2024-25 season.

Embiid scored 41 points in a 126-121 Sixers win in Philadelphia last week, improving his head-to-head record against Jokic to 6-2. But only two of those matchups have been in Colorado.

Embiid can only miss six more games this season before losing his eligibility for the MVP crown and other end-of-year accolades. He and Jokic are the winners of the last three MVPs.

Sixers players Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris and Mo Bamba were ruled out by the team 90 minutes before game time, but there was no mention of Embiid being questionable at that point. The Philadelphia center was not listed on the injury report either.

The fans in Denver were audibly disgruntled by the last-second news. During a pause in the national anthem, a fan at Ball Arena shouted out: “Embiid’s a coward!” The Saturday matinee is being televised nationally on ABC as part of the NBA’s rivalry week, with the intent being to market the two future Hall of Fame centers as rivals. After the game in Philadelphia on Jan. 16, Embiid said he told Jokic that Jokic is the best player in the league.

“No disrespect to what (the NBA is) trying to create, but I don’t feel it’s a rivalry personally,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said Saturday of the Denver-Philadelphia matchup. “They’re in the East. We’re in the West. We play them twice a year. We’ve yet to play them in the playoffs, obviously the NBA Finals. But I think rivalry week, they’re trying to create something between Joel and Nikola, and I get that.”