Time and time again, even on trips, he pulled his shorts down. He would sigh. He stretches his legs. He will be doubled over at the waist. Trip after trip, Joel Embiid looked like he was about to call 911 and call an EMT to deal with a dire situation for the millionth time.
And time and time again, Embiid has done something to move the Philadelphia 76ers closer to the NBA playoffs and Saturday night’s date at Madison Square Garden. He will drive and finish. He’ll find an open teammate. He pounded the offensive glass, followed up, and made foul shots after getting fouled. He knocked down an open 3 and then another.
Somehow, it seemed destined for another excruciating lesson in Heat culture at the end of the game, when he spent 34 games as the league’s clear MVP, then disappeared for two months before returning to first place. At the end of the season. It was Embiid who made the push late in the season. Here he was playing at probably 65 percent efficiency and putting his foot down. He refused to let the Sixers lose.
“When you have him on your side, you like your chances,” Tyrese Maxey said.
23 points and 15 rebounds in 38 minutes were relatively mediocre numbers by his lofty standards, but when you talk about a force like Embiid’s in the final minutes of a game like this, those numbers tell the story. This is just a preface.
Traveling again and again, he almost fainted. He looks like Jim Brown on Sundays in the 1950s and ’60s, when defensemen chased him all over Cleveland Municipal Stadium, hitting him and piling bodies on top of him. It looked like. At times, Brown appeared to have to be plucked off the field or carried off on a stretcher. Then he rose to his knees, then two feet, hobbled to the huddle, then dragged himself to the backfield, then took a handoff and mowed down six tacklers for a 17-yard gain.
That was the case Wednesday night when Embiid powered the Sixers to a narrow 105-104 victory over the Heat culture until the final buzzer at Wells Fargo Center.
“I told them before the game that we needed everyone tonight,” Embiid said after the game. “And tonight everyone knew we were going to win the game.”
This was true to some extent. Nicolas Batum came off the bench and made six threes, all of which were heart-wrenching for the Heat. Maxey had 19 points and six assists. Buddy Hield made some big shots and the Sixers erased a 13-point deficit in the third quarter. All of these players will be problematic for the Knicks starting Saturday. So is Kyle Lowry, the Knicks’ first-team killer. So is Kelly Oubre Jr.
The Sixers know that if healthy, they’ll probably be the No. 2 seed in the playoffs. The Knicks probably know that, too. The Sixers have now won nine straight games, which began the day before Embiid returned from knee surgery. They are the hottest team in the league and will arrive Saturday at 6 a.m. on a full-blown heater after pulling off the always satisfying trick of humiliating the Heat.
And they have Embiid. At his best, he’s on an NBA plane with Nikola Jokic as the only passenger. He’s not in his prime. Some observers wondered if Embiid played the song at full strength for dramatic effect. Some people said that about Brown.
But while he usually emphasizes power and strength, on Thursday he was focused on working hard, saving himself and picking his spots.
“What he did speaks for itself,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said.
And now he comes to New York and attempts to join the podium of Philadelphia athletes who have embedded a place in New York’s sports nightmare: Basketball’s Chase Utley, Basketball’s DeSean Jackson, Basketball’s Edition Bobby Clark’s.
That means the kind of challenge Tom Thibodeau is craving, spending time in his defensive lab against one of the league’s dominant offenses. That means Embiid is making 88 percent of his free throws, so Mitch Robinson, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Precious Achiuwa have to find smart ways to neutralize him without relying on the 18 fouls he gave up. It means not to be.
Some Knicks fans may have spent much of Thursday dreading Game 2 against the Heat. They were probably right to do so. But the replacement doesn’t exactly come in as the No. 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. In the games Embiid played this year, he won nine straight games and went 31-8.
On Saturday night in the Garden, he’ll probably pull on his shorts, sigh, stretch his legs, and fold his hips. He travels again and again. He will be on the verge of collapse. Don’t bet.
