The Philadelphia 76ers find themselves split 2-2 with Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks after a 103-100 loss Monday night in Atlanta. While the absence of the injured Danny Green certainly hurt the Sixers, they need to be able to win without him going forward as he is out for at least 2 more weeks. The story begins and ends, as it has all season, with Joel Embiid. Embiid finished with 17 points, 11 below his average and only shot 8 free throws, half as many as he did in the previous game. Embiid finished 4-20 from the field at 20% shooting.
The NBA media will finally have a reason to talk about the Sixers, because when they win they are “doing what they are supposed to do”, but when they lose it becomes a feeding frenzy on “Embiid is soft” and “Simmons can’t shoot”. The headline today will be “Embiid chokes and Trae Young wills his team to victory”. However, Embiid’s 20% shooting from the field is only 5th-worst all time in Sixers postseason history. The other 4 just happen to be Allen Iverson twice in 2001, Dr. J in 1985, and Hal Greer in 1969. What do these three guys have in common? All three are in the Hall of Fame and all have their jersey number retired by the Sixers. The point is, RELAX.
Joel Embiid is one of the most unique players the NBA has ever seen. He did not start playing basketball until most people were already cut from their high school basketball team. He is 7 feet 280 pounds, but has flashes of all time greats like Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki in his game. He can take any 1 on 1 matchup on the block with ease and has improved his passing ability out of the double team tremendously when they bring an extra body to help on him. He can shoot threes impressively for someone who is the almost same size as Shaq and he can make one-legged fadeaways consistently like Hakeem. The NBA has never seen a talent like this at his size. The constant worry with Embiid though, is his health. If Embiid did not miss 20 games this year he would have been the MVP of the league, as he put up better numbers than Shaq did in his 1999-2000 MVP campaign. However his health seems to be what keeps holding him back, and it appeared that way once again in the Sixers game 4 loss to Atlanta.
So how do the Sixers bounce back?
The Sixers were in the driver’s seat to start the night, with Atlanta only shooting 33% from the field in the first half and the Sixers getting out to an 18 point lead. But the the 4th quarter was essentially the complete opposite. The Sixers accounted for only four made baskets in the fourth quarter. FOUR. That is unacceptable for any playoff team, let alone the #1 seed. The five starters shot combined 1-for-10 in the fourth quarter, with Joel Embiid going 0-for-5, Seth Curry 0-for-1, Tobias Harris 0-for-2, and Furkan Korkmaz going 1-for-2. Finally for the second time in the series against the Hawks, Ben Simmons didn’t attempt a single fourth quarter shot.
The Sixers still had an opportunity to win the game on the last possession.
The Sixers defense locked up the Hawks with 16 seconds left causing a turnover off the grill of Clint Capela. Joel Embiid then caught the ball off the screen and roll with Tobias Harris and took Capela and John Collins up to the rim with him. He missed the shot and did not get a foul call, and Simmons couldn’t secure the ball before it went out of bounds for the putback attempt. After fouling Trae Young, the Sixers got the ball back down 3 with 6.6 seconds remaining. Shake Milton brought the ball down the court and passed up an open three in order to give Seth Curry a shot. Curry was forced to double-clutch the shot, and while it was close, it ultimately missed.
The second half stats were at an all time low for the Sixers in their game 4 performance, especially in the 4th quarter. But that is exactly why the Sixers will win this series in 6 games. Embiid had his worst game of the season, while playing on a torn meniscus, after dropping 39, 40, and 27 in the first three games of the series. As long as Embiid does what he has shown he can do all season going forward, the Hawks are no match for this team. You can bank on the Sixers not having only 1 starter make a single shot the whole 4th quarter going forward. Finally the fact that this was still the Sixers game to win with 6 seconds to go shows that this team can literally play their worst second half of the season and still be in a position to win the game on the final possession.
So, as they say, trust.