Mission accomplished.

Joel Embiid and the United States won Olympic gold after a 98-87 win against France in Paris. They ran the table and didn’t lose a single game in the tournament while going 5-0 in their pre-Olympic warmup series as well.

Individually, it was a quiet game for Embiid, just four points, three rebounds, two assists, and one steal with no made field goals. In a forgettable opening shift, he missed his only shot, got cooked by Wemby, and couldn’t grab a defensive rebound of significance despite being seven feet tall and closer than anyone to the ball. He looked slow,  like he was playing a different game, and sat on the bench for the entirety of the 2nd quarter.

He did return to start the 3rd quarter, and looked much more like himself. Embiid opened up with a tip out offensive rebound for a Kevin Durant mid-range knockdown. He followed that with a duck-in and post up on Guerschon “the French Ben Wallace” Yabusele, which resulted in four made free throws. There was an awkward Rudy Gerbert teabagging and later entanglement, which resulted in Anthony Davis walking on the floor and getting t’d up. It got a little choppy with Embiid out there against a two-big Gobert and Wemby lineup, a flat tire of the latter making for a comical bit of television, but by the time Joel left the floor, the lead was nine points and Team USA was right where they were coming out of the half.

He didn’t return to the game and didn’t have to. France cut the lead to three, but too many sloppy possessions down the stretch and four incredible Steph Curry daggers made the difference. It was an ugly fourth until Steph went absolutely nuclear and dropped quadruple bombs to stave off the French comeback attempt.


So what’s the Philly-related takeaway? I guess we could call it a mixed bag of sorts in Paris. Joel didn’t look good in game one, sat the entirety of game two, then played well in the Puerto Rico and Brazil games. His second half performance was a huge catalyst in the Serbia comeback and they probably don’t win that game without him, so in totality, he was incredibly impactful at a key junction of the tournament, it was just a high ceiling/low floor type of run with a lot of variation from game to game.

And sure, Embiid haters will say he played with a superteam to win the gold, blah blah etc. If he falls short, he’s a bum; if he wins, he was supposed to win. It’s like Penn State vs. Pitt in that regard, with the Yinzers representing the French in this analogy. But for Sixers fans, it wasn’t necessarily about seeing Joel win gold. It was about him getting a taste of basketball’s highest level and hopefully learning from that and bringing it home, for application this NBA season. Whether or not that has happened remains to be seen. It’s TBD, but for now, it’s really nice to see him win the gold, and that second half performance against Serbia is what everyone should remember.