Embiid not enough to carry the playoff load
The Sixers lost the first game of their series against the Boston Celtics, and Joel Embiid offered his familiar stump speech. He offers it regularly, when asked and when not asked, during training camp and during the playoffs, always with quite the air of confidence. He has it down, the inflection, the sincerity. He never hedges.
So he went to work.
“I have to be more aggressive,” he said. “I have to be more assertive.”
And then, in the bring-down-the-house moment, there it was: “I’ve got one job. I have to carry this team.”
For every reason, the act always rocks. He makes the most money. Many times, Brett Brown has called him the Sixers’ “crown jewel,” often preceded by the instruction: “You should hear this.” Brown probably believes it, but he knows it has a dual value, and that if he says it often enough, Embiid will believe it and play that way.
Brown was thinking about Embiid in the brief time between the first two games of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, and that was for one reason: Turns out, all these years later, it’s his last-gasp chance to make his program work. So Wednesday, with the Celtics down a good player in Gordon Hayward, the Sixers went to their crown jewel, just as planned. And Embiid scored 34 points. He took 10 rebounds. He earned 13 foul shots. He tried.
Yet all it achieved was more of the usual from a franchise trafficking in postseason failure since 1983. For despite Embiid pasting Hall of Fame numbers in the boxscore, the Sixers were befuddled everywhere else and lost 128-101, throwing them behind, 2-0, in the best-of-seven series.
Thus, there was the question, the one Brown must soon answer, and Elton Brand must soon answer, and Josh Harris must soon answer, too: If Embiid, even when he is great, is not enough to carry that team to success, then what exactly is the solution?
“You make sure that the group understands that there is enough character and there is enough talent in the room,” Brown said, “to regroup.”
Brown did what he could Wednesday to maximize the basketball brilliance of Embiid. After the Sixers had horrible Game 1 success in feeding the post, their spacing was improved, and there was reduced panic from the entry-passers. Seeking calm, Brown even went to Raul Neto early, a veteran guard renowned for his ability to key an offense with his professional calm.
“One of the things that bothered me was just handling the post,” Brown said before the game. “We definitely had 10 turnovers that came from sort of trying to get the ball inside. We need to be better in that environment.”
The Sixers were better in that environment, particularly early. Brown moved Embiid around nicely and the immediate effect was not only impressive, but scary. Embiid received the ball where he wanted it and when, and by the end of the first quarter he had scored 15 points on 6-for-9 shooting.
But then came the second quarter, when the Celtics double- and-triple-teamed Embiid, who made just two more shots and scored seven more points. By the third, the Sixers had no answers at the defensive end. They looked disinterested. Embiid continued to work, but, much as it was in Game 1, he began to look tired. With Brown going to a zone for much of the third quarter, the Celtics gathered six second-half offensive rebounds. Often, Embiid was too slow to the ball to reverse that trend.
“I guess I have to do more,” Embiid said. “I have to keep pushing and keep pushing. I definitely have way more to give.”
Does he? He is averaging 30 points through two games. That’s pretty good. He hasn’t been unbeatable. But he hasn’t been the problem.
“It goes back to what I tried to express after the first game,” Brown said. “As long as Joel Embiid has the ball, whether we pick-and-roll him into it, whether we flash him to the elbow, that’s an environment we want.
“We all read Joel’s comments. And he is in a good place. And I need to help him help us.”