Joel Embiid’s scariest moment of the season woke his six-month-old son up.

In a March 12 game against the Wizards, Embiid went up for a right-handed dunk in the third quarter. The 280-pound 7-footer landed hard, with all of his weight on his left leg, causing his knee to bend backward and hyperextend. The injury, initially feared to be an ACL tear, wasn’t as gruesome as it looked.

A devastated Embiid, who would later learn that he’d suffered a bone bruise, went back to the locker room thinking his season was over. Despite being riddled with pain, one of the first things he did was check the baby monitor app on his phone, where he saw Arthur awake — an uncharacteristic move for the baby.

“Arthur sleeps through the night, every night. But he woke up crying hysterically, almost like he had a nightmare,” Embiid’s partner and the mother of his son, Anne de Paula, told ESPN as part of a lengthy feature story on the NBA star.

De Paula was watching the injury happen on TV when she heard Arthur crying through the baby monitor.

“It almost felt like, with their connection, Arthur sensed something was going on,” Paula said, noting that the father and son are like best friends. “When Arthur sees him, there is no one else in the room. It is the most beautiful thing ever.”

Embiid went on to explain all the ways his son has changed his life since Paula gave birth on Sept. 16, 2020 — the same day last season’s All-NBA list came out, which Embiid wasn’t a part of. Despite feeling frustrated over that, Embiid said his son’s birth is what mattered most at the time.

Though this season, he’s on track to be named All-NBA, averaging 29 points and 11 rebounds per game.

The Sixers currently hold the No. 1 spot in the Eastern Conference — something Philadelphia hasn’t accomplished in 20 years, when Allen Iverson, Dikembe Mutombo and the 2000-01 Sixers earned the conference’s best record, 56-26, in a full 82-game season.

“We’ve got a chance to win a championship this year,” Embiid said. “We’ve got a chance.”