CLEVELAND – Joel Embiid arrived at work on his 28th birthday morning with his back heavily wrapped in bandage, almost, but not quite, like a big bow around a present.
His 76ers teammates wore T-shirts that George Niang had made to shootaround that depicted a goofy, school picture of Embiid from when he was a boy.
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“I’m not going to lie – at first I thought it was Tupac,” Tyrese Maxey said, of when he first saw the Embiid shirt.
The Sixers, who play Cleveland tonight, are wearing shirts in honor of Joel Embiid’s birthday. That is…an old picture of Joel pic.twitter.com/IiPQItwSgI
— Joe Vardon (@joevardon) March 16, 2022
Embiid, born March 16, 1994, in Yaounde, Cameroon, the country’s capital city, received two great gifts on his special day. We are not going to call the Sixers’ 118-114 win over the Cavs a “gift,” because that would be a terrible cliché that would hurt me to type and you to read.
And also Philadelphia, an alleged title contender, is supposed to win these games. If the NBA playoffs started yesterday, the Sixers as the No. 3 seed, and Cleveland as No. 6 would have been first-round opponents.
“It would be nice if I was home with my family, actually being around them and enjoying it,” Embiid said of playing on his birthday. “That’s the only thing I hated about it, but we got the win.”
Now, to the gifts. One was wrapped not in the paper, but a splint. It was Cleveland center Jarrett Allen’s broken finger. Without the 7-footer Allen, a shot-blocker, out there, Embiid was bound to feast on the likes of Lauri Markannen, Evan Mobley, and even Moses Brown.
Joel was questionable to play on Wednesday due to back soreness (hence, the heavy bandaging in the morning), but he was good to go and posted his league-leading 32nd game of at least 30 points, with 35 on 19 shots, to go with 17 rebounds – just two off his season-high.
The other good one may sound obvious, but it’s James Harden. He is the other great gift as a point guard who is a) playing, and not sitting out the season instead of never wanting to play with Embiid and the Sixers, ever again; b) a superstar who once led the NBA in scoring in three consecutive seasons, who once averaged nearly 25 shots per game, but has come to Philadelphia and done nothing to interrupt Embiid’s existence as this Sixers’ dominant, top scorer.
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Harden scored 21 points on 12 shots against Cleveland, to go with a game-high 11 assists. Nine of those points came in the fourth quarter. He is averaging 13.7 shots in nine games since the Sixers traded Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks for Harden, which is a small sample size but nevertheless would stand as the fewest shots he’s taken in a season since 2011.
And this – Harden’s deferring and relative lack of shot attempts – was a topic of discussion around the Sixers all day. His coach, Doc Rivers, says Harden is an excellent passer, but needs to shoot more.
“You’ve got to be careful to keep him in scoring mode, and not put him in passing mode, because he’ll go there,” Rivers said.
With Allen out, the Cavs’ game plan was essentially to allow Embiid to get pretty much what he wanted on offense. They knew neither Markannen nor Mobley could handle him, and they chose to double Harden off the pick and roll rather than Embiid. Maxey said other opposing defenses have done the same thing since Harden’s arrival, and Harden told me that Denver – the Sixers’ previous opponent – sent two defenders at him the whole game Tuesday night in a game the Nuggets won.
Philadelphia has looked shaky three times since acquiring Harden, in a loss to Brooklyn last week, a too-close-for-comfort win over Orlando, and then in the loss to Denver. In those first two, Harden attempted 17 and 19 shots, respectively, and only made 3 and 5 in the two games. Then he backed off to 11 attempts against the Nuggets.
Maxey was the Sixers’ second-leading scorer against Cleveland with 25 points, while Tobias Harris was right behind Harden with 19.
“He’s trying to make everybody better, which is really good,” Maxey said. “He knows he causes a lot of attention on offense, and guys are doubling off Joel, that’s crazy. Their big has to double James in the pick and roll and they’re leaving Joel. He’s hitting Joel and bigs are collapsing. … It’s really cool to see, but he still gets buckets when he needs to.”
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Harden agreed with Rivers’ assessment, that he should be shooting more, but he also said he didn’t want to force shots that weren’t there (which teammates like Maxey appreciate). He’s gone over 20 points in seven of his nine games with Philly, so a case could be made that Harden is simply being an efficient scorer who is properly deferring to a capable complement of scorers sharing the floor with him.
“I’m trying to be aggressive and trying to take more shots and trying to just, you know, make the right plays at all times,” Harden said. “At the end of the day, I am one of the best decision-makers as far as scoring and making the right pass. With that being said, you still got Jo playing at the highest level, Tobias playing really well, Rese has been playing well, so I’ve got to get guys involved still but mix in a little more aggressiveness.”
The Sixers are now 7-2 with Harden playing. They are working things beyond him finding his sweet spot in their offense.
According to the Sixers’ PR staff, citing statistics from NBA.com, the starting lineup of Harden, Embiid, Maxey, Harris, and Matisse Thybulle is the second-best in the league since the All-Star break.
Rivers’ bench was outscored by Cleveland’s reserves, 41-13. Shake Milton, once a major contributor on the Sixers, played three minutes on Wednesday after logging eight against Denver. Newly acquired Paul Millsap didn’t play at all, nor did Furkan Korkmaz. Danny Green shot 2-of-5 in 21 minutes, and DeAndre Jordan, signed after he was waived by the Lakers to back up Embiid, scored four points with five rebounds in 13 minutes.
Rivers snapped at a questioner about the shifting bench rotation, arguing that he needs time to see what works, and no players in the locker room were upset about inconsistent playing time.
“I know one thing, I can’t play the starting five 48 minutes, that’s a fact,” Rivers said. You just gotta hope you put the right group, it’s usually two starters on the floor at all times with three bench guys (in the playoffs), and we got to make sure we find the right group.”
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If Harden strikes the right balance between deferring to Embiid (and Maxey and Harris) and shooting, it will take a little of the pressure off the second group.
“In the game like tonight, he was doing so much for us,” Rivers said. “He still scored. you know, 20 whatever points. He had 11 assists. You kind of take that tonight. You know, they made a concerted effort to trap him. To deny him. So his attempts will be down. We’re fortunate we have Maxey, we have Tobias, we have Joel.
“You know, in the past, when that happened James probably had nowhere to go. Now he has a lot of help. And so that’s a good thing.”
(Photo of Joel Embiid: Jason Miller / Getty Images)
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