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Reducing the Sixers Conversation to Joel Embiid Lets Everyone Else Off the Hook
By Sean Barnard
Published:
The Philadelphia 76ers have fallen into a 3-1 series hole, and the Boston Celtics are one win away from eliminating them from the playoffs for the fourth time in the past nine seasons. 1982 was the last time the organization defeated the Celtics in a seven-game series.
Joel Embiid made his return to the court for the first time after undergoing emergency appendectomy surgery on April 9th. It had been 17 days since he went under the knife when he dropped 26 points, 10 rebounds, and six assists in a 128-96 blowout loss. Embiid led the Sixers in points, rebounds, and assists, including scoring the team’s first eight points following the opening tip-off and adding a block and a steal.
It is admirable that Embiid was even able to return to the floor to any capacity. This is a medical issue that can keep those of us with far less physically demanding jobs off of our feet for longer. This also is not an issue that Embiid had any real control over. There is no amount of appendix raises he could have done to prevent this.
When you actually dive into the list of ailments that have kept him sidelined throughout his career, plenty fall into this category. The former MVP has suffered Bell’s Palsy, broken his face on Markelle Fultz’s shoulder, broken his face on Pascal Siakam’s elbow, tore a ligament in his shooting hand thumb, and has a laundry list of other issues. Embiid, to his credit, has also played through the vast majority of these issues, especially in a playoff setting.
Typically, this effort level committed to being available is praised in the local lens, and a player plagued by this number of issues is largely viewed sympathetically on a national scale. Yet with Embiid, it always feels as if he is the punching bag for getting hurt. Frustrations for the organization’s best player not being consistently healthy are fair. The individualized criticism is weird.
Embiid returned to the Sixers while facing a 2-1 series deficit after losing a heart-breaker in Game 3 in which they went toe-to-toe with the current Eastern Conference favorites. There was some legitimate juice brought into the building, brought on by what was possibly the last introduction for the big fella of Matt Cord’s career:
But it did not take long for this energy to be let out of the building and for the Sixers to fall behind by double digits. The Celtics led for 96% of the matchup and stretched this to as large as 32 points. They out-rebounded the Sixers 51-30 and outscored them 72-27 from beyond the three-point arc. Philadelphia scored just 18 points in the first quarter and was outscored in each period of play. It was a gutless performance just over two weeks after the organization’s best player did everything in his power to return to the floor after getting an organ extracted from his body.
This was not a loss that falls on the shoulders of any individual person or area. Everyone deserves blame. No player outside of Embiid tallied more than four rebounds in the matchup. Paul George attempted just three three-point attempts and largely looked disinterested in the biggest game of the season. Kelly Oubre Jr. finished with just two points on 0-for-6 shooting while being a bigger detriment on the defensive end, and VJ Edgecombe showed his youth. Edgecombe flashed to be the best player on the floor during his 30-point and 10-rebound performance in Game 2. But the rookie has shot a combined 0-for-16 from beyond the three-point arc in the other three games and 13-for-42 (31%) from the field overall.
It’s unfair to have too much expectation for a 20-year-old kid in his first playoff opportunity. Edgecombe’s rookie season should be viewed as a massive success regardless of how this series goes, and these high-leverage opportunities will only benefit him in the long haul. However, being thrust into such a massive role also speaks to the lack of talent in the Sixers overall rotation compared to true playoff threats.
There is not a single bench player on the Sixers roster who is capable of playing real minutes on a contending team. Andre Drummond was played off the floor against a team that launches three-pointers. Adem Bona is very clearly not ready with foul issues and brain slips that can’t happen in the playoffs. Quentin Grimes disappeared for stretches all year and is averaging 6.8 points per game across this series. The 12th man on the Celtics would be in line for 20+ minutes on this Sixers team while Grimes would not see the floor for Boston. It’s frustrating to watch Oubre struggle on both sides of the ball in 31 minutes of action, but you look down the bench and there is no true better option to replace him.
This is a criticism that should directly fall on the shoulders of Daryl Morey. Not only was the work not done in the offseason, with the organization swinging and missing on a few bargain bin options. But Morey elected to pass on bringing in any sort of rotational update at the trade deadline. The only move that was made was to trade away Jared McCain for a draft pick package. He has to work within the constraints of the ownership’s rules, and getting under the luxury tax line was a clear priority. But if the owner or general manager was serious about this team contending in the weakest Eastern Conference of this entire Embiid era, they would have shown it with their actions. There were more players traded at this NBA deadline than in any season in history, and Philadelphia chose not to add a single one.
It is also unacceptable for Tyrese Maxey to attempt only three shots in the first half of the matchup. The two-time All-Star has stepped up as the face of the franchise amid Embiid’s injury issues and ascended into a true All-NBA level talent. The critiques have largely been targeted at Embiid for Maxey’s lack of shot volume in the matchup, but this is an unfair free pass to give. Maxey touches the ball on just about every offensive possession and had ample opportunity to play in attack mode if he wanted to. The Sixers felt the effects of him not playing with this mindset in the loss, and it allows some long-term doubt to creep into your head for building the organization forward.
To his credit, Maxey has earned a bit of the benefit of the doubt. This is the same guy who has blown past any realistic expectations for how good he could be in his career already and has one of the greatest work ethics in the league. He has not blinked at the big moment at any point in his career just yet, which includes him hitting some massive shots in front of a hostile crowd at Madison Square Garden when facing the Knicks in the postseason two years ago. It is probably fair to conclude that the finger injury that sidelined him for three weeks is a bigger deal than has been made public, and we should brace for some news surrounding this once the season does officially come to an end. Nonetheless, just about every player is dealing with something at this stage of the season, and Maxey has to be judged by the results on the floor.
This is also the same guy who was vocal about the need to set a standard for effort level expectations coming into the season:
This message is admirable, and Maxey is the right guy to spread it. But it’s still one in which the organization is falling short.
Plenty of noise has been made about the different style of play when Embiid is on the floor and when he isn’t. While there is some truth to this not being the easiest transition for such a ball-dominant player going in and out of the lineup, this point is largely overstated. Just looking at pace across this series, the Sixers posted a 92.52 pace in the Game 4 loss with Embiid on the floor and a 92.46 pace in Games 1-3 before he returned. The Game 4 loss was the second-quickest game played by the Sixers in terms of pace.
There also seems to be some confusion that slower means worse, which is simply not the case. The game will always be about a bucket, and the blueprint to scoring at the highest rate and limiting points on the other end looks different for every team. This Celtics team that is on the brink of eliminating the Sixers ranked dead last in pace across the regular season. The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder is not a team known for its speed of play, and their impressive stretch of wins speaks for itself.
Embiid is not a perfect player by any means. But he is still a guy who can sleepwalk to 30 points on a regular basis even while coming off an extended absence. This is a player with a skillset that creates direct advantages within the flow of offense, and should especially be the case against a Boston team without any semblance of interior resistance. Nikola Vucevic could not guard Embiid in the prime of his career, and the now 35-year-old certainly has not improved this outlook.
Even if he is not the fully healthy version of himself, Embiid is a schematic chess piece that can create advantages all across the floor in this matchup. Philadelphia had some great success putting the Boston big men in pick-and-roll situations and forcing them to make decisions. Unlike Drummond or Bona, Embiid brings plenty of options for looks off this. He is a larger threat in the midrange, more capable of putting the ball on the floor to get to the rim and/or free throw line, and a much better passer out of the short roll. But it takes a cohesive game plan and a head coach maximizing the talent of his players to be the case. This is not a way that Nick Nurse should be described.
Perhaps where this is most evident is on the defensive end. Nurse has made it clear since he took over the Sixers and since he started coaching at the NBA level, what his defensive principles are. He does not believe in guarding players straight up in one-on-one settings and would prefer to show aggressive help to attempt to force turnovers. When the defensive rotations are sharp and everyone is on the same page, you see the vision for this. But it is also far too easy to come apart and pave the way for clean perimeter looks for the opponents. This has been especially evident against the Celtics, whose entire offensive identity is built upon driving and kicking to shooters.
Could this scheme work with the right personnel? Absolutely. It can and has. But it is the job of a head coach to maximize the personnel that he has. Players like Kawhi Leonard, OG Anunoby, and Siakam are not on this roster. You simply will not get the same results asking players like Maxey and Oubre to do the same job. Nurse is also making a clear effort to make it known that this is not his fault. He may not be wrong that the effort was a larger issue than his tactical changes, but this is still an issue he has to carry responsibility for:
If this was the effort made by Embiid to get on the floor by a player the city still was in love with, the Game 4 loss would have been viewed as a hero story. If Bryce Harper had returned 17 games post-appendix surgery to play in a Phillies playoff game, the praise would be massive. If Allen Iverson had played on the same level of rest with the same issue, it would be a story echoed on a regular basis. But Embiid is not afforded this luxury.
Ultimately, the team will attempt to collect itself and put forth a respectable effort to extend the series. But this is just delaying the inevitable of this team falling short in the postseason once again. Most fingers will be pointed at Embiid, and there will be more legitimate conversations about his future than ever. But the reality is that the blame deserves to be spread to every member of this organization, and these talks should start right at the top.
To reduce this conversation to Embiid leaves a lot of players and organizational decision-makers off the hook. As has become a frequent theme, Embiid will likely be viewed as a scapegoat for a reason they did not win this series against a team the Sixers don’t have remotely the same talent level nor the coaching to compete with.
But the reality is, if more members of the organization showed a fraction of the heart it takes to return as soon as Embiid did, this series likely looks completely different. Joel Embiid may be without a major organ following the surgery, but the gutless feeling of this overall organization extends well beyond its star.
The Sixers have failed Joel Embiid far more often than Joel Embiid has failed the Sixers, and it is disappointing that this will be another season that falls under this category.
Sean Barnard has covered the Philadelphia 76ers and general Philly Sports for over six years in a variety of roles and for multiple outlets. Currently works as a Content Writer for DraftKings Network, Sixers/NBA Insider for Philadelphia's Fox Sports the Gambler, and co-host of Sixers & Phillies Digest on Youtube. Forever Trusting the Process.