Embiid has his way with C’s
Sixers big man drops 42 in victory
Brad Stevens says it enough, but sometimes the Celtics coach seems to believe that those on the outside aren’t really listening.
From their high point in this young season — a fivegame winning streak — to the two-game losing streak they’re now on, the Celtics are an “OK” team.
“We’ll get better as time goes on as a team,” said the Celtics coach. “But we’ve got a long way to go and improve as I’ve said several times over the last couple of weeks. I thought we played a lot better tonight than we have in some of our wins, and we got beat by a good team, and a great player had a great game.”
The Celtics were back at full offensive capability Wednesday night — at least as full as you can be without Jayson Tatum — and still it wasn’t enough.
The ferocious power of Joel Embiid was simply too much in the Celtics’ 117-109 loss to Philadelphia, with the Sixers center powering his way to 42 points, including 17-for-21 free-throw shooting.
Embiid’s attack was enough to overcome the work of Jaylen Brown (26 points), Marcus Smart (25) and, in his second game of the season, Kemba Walker (19).
Not even one of Daniel Theis’ finest nights as a Celtic, with 23 points on 10-for-11 shooting and 10 rebounds, could change the result. One look at the stat sheet, though, told the story for Smart.
“He shot — alone, himself — 21 free throws. Our team shot 20. Can’t beat that,” said the Celtics guard. “They shot 36-for-45, we shot 13for-20. Hard to win that way.”
The Celtics play another game in Philadelphia on Friday night, so perhaps they can hope for some kind of correction then. But Embiid’s extended life at the line is not new when he plays the Celtics. In 12 career regularseason games against the Celtics, Embiid has averaged 9.75 free-throw attempts per game — a number that seems to have grown with age.
So sure, Smart is frustrated.
“It’s tough. It is tough. Especially when we’ve got our hands up a lot of the times and he flails and gets the call,” he said. “And then down on the other end we’ve got our guys attacking the rim, getting a lot of contact and we’re just not getting the whistle. It’s tough to play like that. It’s tough.
“If the roles were reversed I’d do it every time. I mean, I’d be on, too, if every time I threw my arms up or every time I got touched I’m going to the free-throw line,” said Smart. “I mean, it’s kind of hard not to get into a rhythm that way when you shoot 21 free throws alone and they allow you to hack on the other end. It’s tough, but we battled. The team did a good job. We were right there to give ourselves a win and try to run it back again on Friday.”
By then, though, a familiar bruising figure will still be there, under the basket, looking for contact.
“We know Joel is probably the best big in the whole league,” said Theis. “He’s a great player. Obviously, he shot a lot of free throws, too, so it’s hard for us when we play physical and stay strong. We’ve got to do a better job getting the ball out of his hands so other guys can score the ball instead of him. We got to keep him off the free-throw line as well.”
Walker’s stop-and-go rotation: Walker is still under a 20-minute restriction, and as such he only played 12 minutes in the first half, the last minute of the third quarter, and was on the floor for the close of the fourth. The Celtics guard wanted the restriction lifted yesterday, as Stevens knows as well as him. But one thing has become clear to Walker. After only two games, he’s already better than at any point in the Orlando bubble.
“Everything,” he said when asked what he can do better now. “I think just my movements. My movement is a lot better. I’m more comfortable just being me, splitting screens, getting downhill, stop and go. Most importantly is my pull-ups. I’ve been shooting my pullups for many years now in this league and that was something that I struggled with to get to when my knee was really, really hurting. That’s one indication that I know I’m feeling a lot better.”
Waiting for Tatum: With Tatum’s return not too far away, his teammates want to make the forward’s return from quarantine as simple as possible.
“First of all, I don’t think we can put too much pressure on Jayson,” said Theis. “Even though if he’s back for Friday’s game, he’s been in quarantine for two weeks. I can’t wait to have everyone 100% back and just play the season hopefully, we will stay awhile like this since we will have a deep rotation, a really good team and now with Kemba back and everyone back, we can play Celtics basketball and that’s what we want to do.”
About that jump ball: As steamed as he was about the lopsided nature of the calls, Smart may have even been more upset about the jump ball that Danny Green won from Brown. The toss certainly seemed to go in the Philadelphia forward’s direction.
“I mean, the ball went right to Danny Green,” said Smart. “It’s a jump ball, but you should have just given him the ball if you’re just going to throw it right to a side instead of throwing it up to the middle. There’s no way Danny Green’s outjumping Jaylen Brown and winning that jump ball. Sorry.”