McCaffery: Roughly, Embiid’s been in a great place
Brett Brown has seen every NBA game Joel Embiid has played, every practice, every training camp, every shot. He’s seen him overweight, underweight, hot, cold, at his worst and, by all means, in recent days in Orlando.
That means he is seeing him at his best.
“The best place,” Brown said, “that he’s ever been.”
Embiid was everywhere he should have been Wednesday during a 10798 victory over the Washington Wizards in the BubbleDome. He was rebounding when he should have been rebounding, shooting from distance when appropriate, running, passing against the double-team. But he was one other place, too. That would be the floor, hard and unforgiving. It wasn’t once. It wasn’t twice. It was a half-a-dozen times. More, probably. Yet that’s where he was, all 7-feet, 280 pounds of him, crashing to the ground.
Typically, that willingness to extend himself to win games at any physical risk is the Sixers’ center’s most endearing professional trait. When he plays basketball, he means it. But Wednesday, there was more to Embiid’s endless loop of spills, and it is something the NBA probably didn’t think through before engaging in what otherwise has been a brilliant return from a virusconcern shutdown.
Embiid was falling because he was playing against what can best be characterized as a team of young players using the final eight games of the regular season not just to win games, but to win eyeballs and, by extension, to eventually win paychecks. That the Wizards even qualified for the pre-postsesaon ramp-up was the result of a statistical quirk, as they technically were within reach of winning a playoff spot. But Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans, two of the world’s better shooters, opted out of the Bubble. John Wall has been injured for years. And Scott Brooks has a roster stuffed with players going nowhere but to the next tryout camp.
So it was Wednesday when the Wizards banged the Sixers all over the place. Embiid never stopped falling. Alec Burks was slow to get up after one collision, and limped around for the rest of the possession. Though it may have been pure basketball bad luck, Ben Simmons injured his left knee. The game between a team with plenty to lose and one that just loses plenty was so scratchy that a major chunk of Brown’s postgame praise was saved for the way Al Horford did his own banging around underneath.
In hockey, they would have called it leaving a calling card.
“The physicality of that game, you felt,” Brown said. “And you knew you needed some things to compete with that. You needed to go apples for apples. And Al, if he is anything, he is physical.”
The playoffs, for which the Sixers already have qualified, will be physical in their own way. Washington center Moritz Wagner running into people and flopping is not one of those ways. If the Sixers lost Simmons for any significant time because of the way that game was played, they will not be whole for the playoffs. As long as Embiid is available though, and as long as he continues to play as he has in the NBA re-start, they will be competitive.
Since the Sixers have been shouted down by many for load-managing Embiid for years, they cannot be criticized for allowing him to play through the final seconds of a rough game that they’d already had enough points to win Wednesday. But it’s not impolite to point out that he has occasionally been brittle. So Brown had to grimace every time he watched the player he calls the Sixers’ “crown jewel” tumble against a team doing little more than wasting per diem money.
“I’m going to say something that sounds funny,” Brown said. “But I’ve learned this watching Joel as he hits the floor. He actually knows how to fall. Tony Parker knew how to fall, and he did for his whole career.
“For sure, it was a physical game all over the place.
They roll out athletes. I thought we did a pretty good job. But they were physical and they were running and they would crash the boards. They attacked, they were physical, they were aggressive. And they did it all over the floor.”
The Sixers responded appropriately, avoiding an upset the way the good teams do. Their defense was their best in the three re-start games. Embiid continued to show remarkable vision, timing and selflessness in the way he was able to pass out of the double-team. Shake Milton played a second consecutive strong game after being overwhelmed in his first formal point guard start. Horford was what the Sixers need him to be, strong, willing and mistake-free. Even Simmons attempted an inthe-flow three-point shot, key word, attempted.
The Sixers are through with the Wizards know how to fall too. The remaining five games will be against teams with reasonable chances to earn a playoff spots or better their postseason seeding. They need to be ready as possible once the eightgame mini-season ends, so they need that bonding opportunity. That means Embiid, who has been supplying MVP numbers since the hiatus, has to be let loose at whatever risk.
“He’s doing everything he has to do,” Horford said. “And it’s no surprise he is playing the way he is.”
The Sixers will be at their best only when Embiid is healthy, engaged and willing to be unselfish. In Orlando, he has hit that trifecta. But he has hit the floor plenty, too.
That means he is in a very good place, yet too often one that could prove a little unforgiving.