Embiid and Covington won’t forget early doubters
BOSTON » Not content to assume his place in the ever-rolling rivalry between the 76ers and the Boston Celtics, Joel Embiid Wednesday chose to announce an open-enrollment opportunity to his enemies list.
After practice a day before the Sixers and Celtics would play Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals at the TD Bank Garden, the Sixers’ center offered a new target.
Look out, long-ago critics.
“I kind of hold grudges,” Embiid said, seated in a front-row bleacher at Harvard. “Because people used to tell us that we were the laughingstock of the whole NBA. Now, everybody is talking about us.”
The Sixers are popular because they won 52 games and a spot in Round 2 of the postseason. For two days, though, they have been talked about as a team that lost by 16 points in Game 1 at the Garden and must make adjustments in order to win Game 2 Thursday night at 8:30.
Fair or not, to borrow a description of basketball conversation favored by Brett Brown, the Sixers are at a crossroads in terms of perception. They have won 20 of their last 22, but just three of their last five. And if they were a source of comedy since Embiid’s arrival in 2014, it was because the organization willingly invited horrid basketball with the semi-promise of later excellence.
Embiid, though, is displeased with how the Sixers were perceived before, and how that reflects their perception, so many years and victories later.
“First of all, we have a lot of talent,” Embiid said. “And the coach, we love him and each other. And just the way we play, moving the ball and sharing the ball, there is no one who is selfish. We want to do this together. That’s the way the coach put this together and we have to keep going. We have a lot of talent and we’ve got a pretty good chance.”
Since Embiid chose the two-day break between Games 1 and 2 to reopen healing wounds, he understood it would come with an obligation: If there are lurking critics lurking prepared to bombard the Sixers with more laughter, then the only way they will be shooed away is with a lengthy postseason run … or more.
“Like I said, we’ve got a special team,” Embiid said. “Championship-special. So we just have to go out and continue to play the way we can play.”
The Sixers have collected 56 victories, the postseason included, and a few more would minimize any grudges held against them by those who did not find joy in records of 19-63, 18-64, 10-72 and 28-54. But Robert Covington, who joined the Sixers shortly into the 2014-2015 season and thus is the second-longest-tenured player behind Embiid, is not willing to let the doubters so easily escape without some verbal counter-punching. Told Wednesday that Embiid was taking the CelticsSixers grudge-match in a fresh direction, Covington raced quickly to the center’s side.
“Yeah,” Covington said. “Absolutely. Absolutely. If you didn’t believe in us during that whole phase, going through the rebuilding process and everything, don’t try to jump on us now. Because we believed in what we were doing. So I feel the same way as Jo.
“People always say the same thing about the whole jumping-on-thebandwagon thing. But if you weren’t with us in the rough years, you can’t jump on when we are doing good.”
With that, Covington, Embiid and every other grudge-curator knowingly walked into a conflict that can be won the only way their series with Boston can be won: by demonstrating basketball excellence.
“We all continue to grow and we all continue to do what we’ve been doing,” Covington said. “The main thing is that getting better. We’re not going to promise anything. But the main thing is that it is a different team. It is a whole different team. We have a unit that can do a lot of great things. And this year is a prime example of it.
“We’re going to go as far as we can because this team is so unbelievable. We’ve changed in a lot of ways, and we’ve grown up a lot. So we can do a lot of special things. It’s just a matter of we as a team believing in it, to continue believing in it, and to continue to do what we’ve been doing.”
As the Sixers rebuilt, there were legendary stories of entire rows being available for about a dollar at some of their games. This season, they played to 100 percent capacity, averaging 29,329 fans per game … fans they will count on for support when the series returns to the Wells Fargo Center Saturday.
Some just might have arrived late to that carousel.
“I really appreciate the support,” Embiid said. “I have been around the team the longest. I really appreciate it, because going through that period of losing a lot of games, it kind of hurt me too, because I was not able to play.
“But I do appreciate the support.”
And he won’t forget when it wasn’t there.