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Tim BontempsESPN
Joel Embiid knew the situation of the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night against the Miami Heat visitor.
Playing with the short hand for the third game in a row and in the second back-to-back night – and that was before the two available Philadelphia goalkeepers, Ben Simmons and Tyrese Maxey, failed – it would have been easy because Sixers to pack it.
But Embiid had other ideas.
Due to the second dominant half – in which he scored 35 points from his season maximum 45 points to go along with 16 rebounds, four assists and five steals for one last stat line, only Charles Barkley equalized in a Sixers uniform in nearly half a century – Embiid managed to pull the Sixers over the finish line as they won 137-134 in overtime at Wells Fargo Center.
“It was necessary,” Embiid said of his performance, which included an 11-point straight stretch for the Sixers, from the 3.3-yard touchdown run to the regular season until he hit a mid-jumper with 2 : 03 to enter overtime. – I needed her tonight.
“We lost three games in a row. Our mentality should always be that we should never lose two games in a row and we lost three in a row,” he explained, “so there was no chance we would go down losing four in a row. So, whatever I had to do and everything my colleagues had to do, I did it and I got the victory. “
The fact that Philadelphia broke its losing streak and returned to the winning column largely made Embiid – something that didn’t seem to be on the verge of happening at the break. Embiid had 10 points and seven rebounds at the break, but was not exactly involved – although he did more than Simmons, who struggled hard after missing the previous two games with a swollen left knee. Simmons committed five turnovers in the first half and eventually failed with five points and 12 assists to go six turnovers in 32 minutes.
But while Simmons was fighting, Embiid came out of a man’s break. Embiid scored 20 points just in the third quarter to start turning the game back in the direction of Philadelphia, putting the team on its back due in part to a slight adjustment by Sixers coach Doc Rivers to bring the ball to various places on the floor. .
“We put him in the middle of the floor,” Rivers said, “because every time we put him under the free throw line, until he threw, they came from there.
“I thought [Miami] he really fought, finding where to catch or who to catch; and it also allowed Joel to see when people were catching him where he was throwing the ball, so it’s a good fit. “
“[But] he wanted this game for us tonight, “the coach said of Embiid.
This was especially true once Simmons and Maxey failed. Embiid had the ball in his hands on virtually every field trip, after which Rivers deployed him essentially as a center point.
Rivers said the Sixers ran essentially the same track – called “Delay,” a Philly set up at the random shootaround Tuesday morning – out of necessity for most of the fourth quarter and overtime as the guards fouled. .
“Sometimes life is luck,” Rivers said with a laugh. “I laughed on the bench … It’s amazing. We’re working on it today and then it’s going to be a lifesaver for us.”
Meanwhile, Embiid was quite pleased with the chance to have the ball in his hands.
“Playing in the center of the point, guard or whatever you want to call him, I’m glad,” he said. – It worked well.
For Embiid, who has never been shy about making his feelings known, maybe some of that growth in the second half came from a place of frustration with the NBA because the Sixers continued to play short. This was the third game in a row in which Sixers dropped a few key components after a lot of players entered the league’s health and safety protocols following a positive test of Seth Curry last week in Brooklyn.
After the NBA postponed Heat’s game against the Boston Celtics on Sunday – a day after the Sixers had only seven healthy players available for a home loss to the Denver Nuggets – Embiid wrote on Twitter: “HATE THE PROCESS,” he could be perceived as a blow to the NBA because he didn’t do the same for his team the day before.
Asked after Tuesday’s game if Philly should have played, Embiid did not hesitate to answer.
“No,” he said. “It seems that any other game continues to be canceled. But we think the league makes us play. There is no other explanation behind it, especially that game in Denver, when we had to put on an injured player just to make sure we had enough players to be able to compete – while other teams that didn’t have that much many players and the league did not make any of them wear a injured player, just to make sure that a game will take place.
“So that’s unfortunate, but he’s the next man up. You can’t complain about that. Winnings still matter, losses still matter; we have to get all these victories. We have to keep fighting until those guys come back and that’s it. our job. “
Another point of motivation for Embiid this season was left out of last year’s All-NBA teams. Embiid voiced that he felt he deserved to be named one of the top three centers in the league and was motivated to prove that people were wrong to leave him this season.
After Tuesday’s game, Embiid now has an average of over 26 points and 12 rebounds per game so far in this campaign. And when asked if he still wins motivation from last season’s awards, he said it was – while adding that he will take care of himself, provided the Sixers continue to win this season.
“It is, but that’s not what I’m focusing on,” he said. “The main goal is to win a championship. When it comes to individual prizes, it can only happen if you win games. So the main thing that worries me is to win.
“Because at the end of the day, if I win, if we win and get the first seed, there’s no reason you know I shouldn’t be in conversations MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, First All-NBA team and all that stuff. . “
“Everything comes back to the same thing: winning,” he added. “But the main goal is to win the championship; we’re trying to prepare for what’s to come, the playoffs and [getting] at that level. As I said, everything comes back to win. “