At some point, you run out of things to say about Joel Embiid. I’m out here looking through Roget’s Thesaurus when I do these headlines, but I’ve already used “dominant” and “dazzling” this season. I’ve already used “commanding” and “brilliant.” There aren’t enough synonyms on the planet to describe what we’re seeing from Embiid this season.

Thursday night, we got 42 points on 66% shooting. We got 3-4 from three and 11-14 from the foul line. We got 14 rebounds, five assists, a steal, and six turnovers that the Sixers were able to live with in a 123-120 win against Milwaukee, playing against Giannis and company with Georges Niang moved into the starting five and James Harden cheering along from the sidelines.

Speaking of which, Marc Farzetta spotted this on the broadcast:

“Thank you,” says Harden, appreciative of the youngster heeding his advice.

It’s cool to see Harden on the road and getting into it. He seems motivated and it looks like we’re gonna get that buy-in once he makes his debut after the All Star break, likely next Friday in Minnesota.

But back to Embiid for a minute, who enters the break with these numbers:

  • 46 of 58 games played
  • 32.9 minutes per game
  • 29.6 points per game (career high)
  • 11.2 rebounds per game
  • 4.5 assists per game (career high)
  • one steal and 1.4 blocks per game
  • 3.0 turnovers per game (career low)
  • .530 effective field goal percentage
  • 36.9% from three
  • 19.3 FGA per game (career high)
  • 37.2% usage (career high)
  • a 50 point performance
  • nine games with 40+ points

If he’s not the MVP, I don’t know who is. Nikola Jokic is having another fantastic year, but if Embiid keeps it up at this pace, he’s likely going to knock off Joker this season (and keep in mind, he did all of this while a max player teammate held out). Otherwise, Giannis looks great, as always. Chris Paul, Steph Curry, etc. DeMar DeRozan is in the top ten, and has won the author of this story a lot of money this season.

If you watched last night’s game, you saw a ton of instances where Milwaukee was throwing triple teams at Embiid and he was still finding a way out of it. He’s really come so far as a passer, whereas previously every Joel double was an adventure in locating the open man. It also helped that Niang was hot last night, because there were numerous instances of running screens for him on that delay action (with the double pindowns/brush cuts) and he was just catching and firing off Embiid passes.

Doc Rivers did take his usual criticism. Seems like we can’t get through a game without someone having some sort of gripe about him, but again he continues to throw out these unnecessary lineups. Even without Harden, you have Embiid, Maxey, and Tobias Harris to work with. There should never be an all-bench lineup of Paul Millsap, Furkan Korkmaz, Danny Green, Niang, and Shake Milton out there when Giannis is on the floor. Never. Hopefully Harden’s introduction brings us the end of the dreaded all-bench lineup, and Doc will find his pairings and better stagger a starter (or two) into the second unit, because while it’s stuff they’re getting away with now, it’s gonna bite them in the ass eventually.

I’ll leave you with this on a Friday morning: