All Embiid to Get By: Sixers Win Game Two to Even Series With Heat
The big guy carried us home.
Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
Andrew's writing is brought to you by Kinetic Skateboarding! Not only the Ricky's approved skate shop, but the best place to get Chucks, Vans, any apparel. Use code "DAVESILVER" for 9.1% off your order.
NBA Playoffs First Round: Sixers and Heat Tied 1-1
It may as well have been Rotten Tomato Giveaway Night at the not-Wells Fargo Center. Duno if Elias Sports Bureau has the stats for it, but I’m guessing it’s pretty rare that a team gets booed during its own home playoff introductions -- not everyone, to be fair, but there were definitely some audible jeers as Al Horford and Tobias Harris unenthusiastically trotted out of the tunnel. With the home crowd clearly on tilt and Ben Simmons again idling on the sideline, the potential for disaster was as high as for a Prince hologram tour, while the possibility of heading to Miami down 2-0 loomed as a near-doomsday scenario for the Sixers.
Good thing, then, that they had the best player on the court. Joel Embiid had a fairly strong performance in Game One, too, but early foul trouble knocked him out for most of the first half, and by the time he got cooking in the second it was already too late. But last night, he dominated early and he dominated often, getting absolutely everything going: His first quarter included two threes, five free throws, and a block on Bam Adebayo that had the crowd gasping like he’d just Mozgov’d the All-Star center. By the end of the first quarter, the Sixers were up 35-21, and JoJo was going full Iverson with the crowd, cupping his ear, raising the volume, even giving us a little shimmy. The boos, needless to say, had been stopped.
So had the Heat’s bombers. We didn’t quite hold ‘em to 2014 Sixers level of shooting -- the GOAT Duncan Robinson still got off a few as the Heat mounted a brief comeback run going into halftime, and Goran Dragic has maybe never missed against us. But things dried up for the rest of the squad, particularly for our good buddy AI9, who made up for his 3-4 shooting night from deep in Game One by going a cool 0-5 in this one, including a nothing-but-nothing whiff in the early fourth that got the crowd chanting like it was Easter and Passover all over again. It was a 10-35 night on the whole for the Heat from deep, making it impossible for Miami to launch the push they needed to crawl out of their early deficit.
And Jimmy Butler… he got his, but there was no early triple-double watch in this one. He was cold from the field in the first half -- Josh Richardson did a nice job of forcing him into a steady diet of fadeaways -- and by the time he started forcing his way to the line late against Tobias Harris, the game was already more or less decided. J-Rich’s admirable work staying in front of his summer trade partner also prevented Jimothy from collapsing our defense and getting his kickout or dropoff dimes, and allowed Embiid to stay in perfect help position, where he racked up six swats on the night, tying a playoff career high. Embiid also ended up with a 32-15-5 line -- one of his best all-around playoff games as a pro -- as the Sixers more or less cruised to a 114-102 victory.
“I mean, this is a great team that we’re playing against, and we all know what Jimmy can do with the ball in his hands,” Joel told Israel Gutierrez in his post-game interview. “That’s why it was important for me to set the tone early, to come out, stay out of foul trouble, and just dominate like the best player on the court. I know I can do that, my teammates and Coach, they know I can do that. The fans, they definitely know I can do that, though sometimes maybe they forget. But I showed them tonight, and now we have to go Miami and I can show them there, too.”
Of course, evening the series with the Heat was only one of Sixers fans’ primary hopes for last night -- the second, and arguably just as important, was seeing Ben Simmons back in game action. Positive reports about Simmons’ prognosis throughout the day had led to optimism that his gametime-decision status would end with him finally taking the court again with the Sixers’ starting five. But for the 27th straight Sixers game, the opening tip and the final horn both came and went without his size-14 Nikes hitting the hardwood, leading a whole lot of Sixers Twitter to wonder what exactly it was going to take for the two-time All-Star to take the floor again.
The 72 hours have elapsed, and the JJ Redick story closes with some controversy, as Spike and Mike work through the details. We catch up with Andrew Unterberger, who has continued to follow the Sixers season in an alternate reality, and start their 4 vs. 5 seed series with the Heat today.
You could ask Brett Brown, of course, but at this point he’d clearly prefer that you didn’t. “Look, Kyle, I don’t want to be flippant and just say, ‘Ask Ben,’” the exasperated coach answered in his postgame availability. “It’s still a decision the team has to make in collaboration with Ben and his people. But if you’re asking me, what is it going to take for us to get the green light from our staff, from Ben, from his people? I really just don’t have an answer for you at this point. We’re hopeful we’ll have him when we get to Miami, but I’d be lying if I said I felt confident that we’d know for sure before we got there.” Only in Philadelphia could a team pick up a huge win at home and still have the post-game discussion dominated by questions about possibly phantom injuries. (Unsurprisingly, “HIS PEOPLE” was a late-night trending topic in the Philly area.)
Nonetheless, even without Ben, the Sixers were able to play coherent ball on both sides last night. J-Rich’s herculean effort on defense certainly helped, as did Matisse Thybulle (a surprise fifth starter, with Al Horford sent to the bench to counter the Heat’s small lineup) chasing shooters all around the perimeter. But on offense, it was Shake Milton’s time to shine, as his patience with the dribble allowed him to find the small holes in the Heat’s defense, getting his floater working and finding Joel in the two-man game. A respectable (and typically mistake-free) 19 and 7 for Shake at the helm of the Sixers’ offense tonight, the kind of production we’ll need from him at a minimum in Ben’s absence.
So we’re heading for MIA with a 1-1 split and one of our two stars still MIA, then -- it really is 2018 all over again. That series turned out pretty OK, as the Sixers never lost again once they set foot in South Beach. Could this first round turn out to be similarly drama-free? Does Ben already have a plan to return for a specific game this series? Will Brett Brown start checking with Mrs. Brown to make sure his post-game outfits don’t make him look like a college kid who’s already decided to sleep through his morning classes? The answer to all these questions: maybe, but probably not.