Joel Embiid overcomes pain and hurts Knicks as 76ers win Game 3

PHILADELPHIA – The scoreboard still had neon yellow numbers as Joel Embiid trotted away from the Wells Fargo Center floor, straight through the tunnel to the 76ers' locker room, leaving behind Philadelphia's victory song, his playoff career-high 50 points and his 125-114- The team won Game 3 over the Knicks.

As reporters were allowed nearby, he collapsed into the recliner in his dressing room. Two huge red containers of ice-cold water were waiting to soak his feet. Philadelphia's longtime coach Kevin Johnson has already left a pile of black tape, glue, towels, scissors and a bulky Breg knee brace next to the reigning NBA MVP. Another prop, another way to aid Embiid's return from meniscus surgery on his massive left leg, was to lie on a bag fit for a hockey player, not an athlete whose sport requires tank tops and sneakers.

And after Johnson wrapped both sides of his bad knee with a full roll of Ace bandage filled with ice cubes, Embiid placed a pair of dark sunglasses on his nose to protect his eyes while also suffering from mild Bell's palsy, with which the All star confirmed after the game that he had been keeping busy in the building for two days before Philadelphia's play-in tournament win over Miami last week. His body felt uncomfortable during that Heat win. He suffered from migraines and incredibly dry eyes, and now his lip is starting to droop. But the 30-year-old, who has seemingly suffered a major setback in every postseason of his illustrious career, managed to hit four 3-pointers in a crucial 43-27 third-quarter spurt for Philadelphia, which now has the Sixers Consequence to be achieved Shortly before the evening, the organization had the impression that the series was already close to being 2-0 in their favor.

“I just want to be on the floor as much as possible. I want to play as much as possible,” Embiid said. “I only have maybe about eight years left so I have to take as much with me, I have to enjoy it as much as possible and I want to win.”

ESPN's broadcast of Game 1 at Madison Square Garden showed for the first time Embiid's eyes fluttering uncontrollably as he sprawled across the court after his vicious alley-oop. The Philadelphia center wanted to keep his condition a secret, but by the time his entire jaw dropped under his own power Thursday night, his status had become too obvious and too worrisome for Embiid and the Sixers to keep the news a secret. “I have a beautiful face,” Embiid said. “I don’t like it when my mouth looks away.”

He finished 5 of 7 from distance, 13 of 19 from overall and hit a whopping 19 of 21 foul shots, days after the Sixers filed a complaint with the NBA alleging that Embiid and his young co-star in Tyrese Maxey was the most disadvantaged team throughout the season.

For a while, in the first two quarters of Game 3, Embiid seemed to be fighting as much with the refs in his head and his emotions as he did with New York. Late in the first quarter, after he thought he had been hit on a long-range attempt from the left wing, Embiid waved his arms as he ran back on defense, and then he thrashed around on the floor, swinging at Mitchell Robinson's legs, as the Knicks center shot up above the paint for a dunk.

“This is something where you, you know, snap, Mitch is what, 280? “You grab his leg when he jumps and don't let him come down, that's something that even a sprained ankle would be a lucky injury,” Knicks winger Josh Hart said. “He was ruthless. But luckily he wasn't seriously injured and had to be out for a long time.” Robinson actually left the arena with a boot on his left foot, but it appears the injury was sustained in a different sequence in the second half.

Embiid claims he was acting out of self-preservation during the game in question, having flashbacks on the hardwood to late January in San Francisco, where Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga landed awkwardly on Embiid's knee, sidelining the seven-time All-Star for two months going to the operating room and now stumbling across the court to get this Sixers team to its ultimate goal. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Embiid said. “It’s exactly in situations like this that I have to protect myself. Because I have experienced far too many situations in which I am always on the receiving end of the bad end.”

It was still an awkward sequence that, from the lens' perspective, certainly could have resulted in Embiid's disqualification. But after review, the incident was ruled only a flagrant 1-foul, and crew chief Zach Zarba told a pool reporter that it was unanimous between on-site officials and the replay center in Secaucus that Embiid's contact did not rise to the level of an unnecessary and unnecessary foul increased was exaggerated. That's how he stayed in the game, and through the starts and stops due to challenges and game stoppages from multiple coaches, Embiid leaned his franchise on his strong shoulders to deliver arguably the strongest playoff performance of his career.

“I have to say his voice and his presence were the biggest thing tonight,” said Maxey, who scored 25 points himself. “I know he had 50, I said that like it was nothing, but his voice, his presence, his passion was huge tonight. He didn’t let us get pushed around early on.”

Embiid was all over the court. In the postseason, such as the Sixers' collapse last spring against another Atlantic Division opponent in Boston, Philadelphia has struggled to simply place the orange piece in Embiid's capable hands. On Thursday, he was money from the top of the key and from the extended left block, making plays from both pick-and-rolls and dribble handoffs. “Being on the block every single possession is just not the way to play and it’s not going to get you anywhere,” Embiid said. “I did it. It won't do you any good.”

This is partly why Philadelphia hired head coach Nick Nurse, known for his ingenuity in plotting against Embiid during multiple playoff series while also managing the Toronto Raptors. The first private conversation Nurse and Embiid had after the game-goer's arrival centered around one key word: unpredictability. “I just laid all over the floor, the handle, the corner, the top of the key, the paint, the stop,” Embiid said Thursday. “We just try to be as unpredictable as possible. And that's how I love to play. That’s not the type of basketball I used to play.”

On several occasions, Nurse called for a routine spread play that NBA teams typically call “horns,” in which two big men stand around each other's elbows, ready to fend off the ball handler, and the other two teammates are positioned in the corners. Philadelphia reversed the design several times in front of that raucous crowd, shoving Embiid into the back corner, where diminutive point guard Kyle Lowry – who won Toronto's championship with Nurse in 2019 – stormed to the baseline to set up Embiid's pin-down screen to man, Isaiah Hartenstein, 7 feet tall, 250 pounds. “You have to be ready to get hit,” Lowry said. The Raptors saw this action during their struggles against LeBron James' Cavaliers, where Channing Frye or Kevin Love could torch Toronto every time Cleveland asked for it.

“It's hard to guard because if you go over it, he should have some kind of path to the basket,” Nurse said. “If you go below it, he's a good shooter to try and take a step back. It's hard to guard.

Philadelphia was certainly difficult to guard on Thursday night. And they appear fully prepared to get back in the ring on Sunday – no matter how much equipment and attention Embiid's body needs for another fight.