This Is All I Ever Wanted
This Is All I Ever Wanted
Joel Embiid is officially the answer. Finally.
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.
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There are probably 100 emotions you feel watching your team over the course of an average playoff basketball game, and 95 of them are bad. Terror, anxiety, shame, frustration, irritation, depression, nausea -- sometimes all of them at the same time, particularly when a near-the-basket Danny Green is involved. When people call a basketball game "good," that generally means it was relatively close throughout, but games like that are only good if you don't actually care about what's happening in them. Close games are uniformly miserable for all fans, right until the second they're over. You might feel some generally positive emotions in spots during one of those -- excitement, validation, pride -- but experiencing true joy or happiness is simply impossible; it'd be like achieving contentment while going through airport security five minutes before your scheduled flight. The best you can hope for in the moment is relief.
Relief is what washed over me watching Joel Embiid hit that three on Wednesday night -- relief over any number of things. Relief, of course, that the game was likely over, that we wouldn't have to go to a second overtime -- and that sending us to one would be the best the Raptors could do even in a near-miracle situation. Relief that the Raptors weren't going to go into Game Four with momentum and a chance to even it up on us like they did in that pivotal Game Four three years earlier. Relief that the series was ultimately about as done as the game was, that we weren't wrong to think that things would be different with this team this year, that we wouldn't have to deal with Twitter trolls and media pundits second-guessing everything we thought we'd established in Games One and Two. Relief that we weren't gonna get a Drake lyric about all this -- or that if we did, it'd be one Raptors fans would be actively dreading.
But most of the relief was for Embiid. Relief that he finally had a game-winner -- a real game-winner, no qualifiers needed -- on his resume, in a crucial spot for his team, in about as playoff atmospherey a road playoff atmosphere as he'll ever face. Relief that both his miss from three at the close of regulation and the awkward first 23.1 seconds' worth of possession that preceded this make were now instantly distant memories, to be remembered only in future SB Nation Rewinder videos. Relief that this game wouldn't have to be a referendum on how Embiid still couldn't close games late, still couldn't be trusted in the highest-leverage situations. Relief that he would no longer be the bullied, but now officially the bully for Toronto, that he finally had a playoff moment as signature -- well, almost as signature -- as the shot Kawhi hit from the opposite corner three springs earlier. Relief that he had at long last beaten the fucking Raptors, in Toronto, with them at (almost?) close to full strength, mostly through the sheer force of his own awesomeness. Relief that after so many close but not quites, after so many disappointments and so many tears, he had finally just done the damn thing.
And really, he didn't even need to do this tonight. He had already done his bit just by shaking off what, especially by his standards, was just a miserable first half -- five points with nearly as many turnovers and no assists, great defense but not a lot else -- by going hogwild in the third quarter. He scored 18 in the period (including an absurd fall-away three to beat the shot clock and a dunk that sent Pascal Siakam to the Phantom Zone) to drag his point total into the 20s where it belonged, and got the Sixers, down 17 in the second, to within one by the start of the fourth. This was just as big a box for Embiid to check, and one he hadn't always been able to, particularly against Toronto -- to power through a rough start, stay focused, and get himself right in time to save the day. He'd done it countless times in the regular season, but there'd always be questions until he did it in the playoffs. Those questions were answered on Wednesday.
That could've been enough. By the time the game got to OT -- really, by the time the teams were trading buckets down the stretch in regulation -- I'd already basically penciled this in as a moral victory anyway. If the Raptors could be spotted a gazillion Sixers turnovers, a piss-poor Embiid start and a relatively kind whistle in the first half and still only win by the margin of a missed Tobias putback, I could probably still sleep afterwards with a relatively clear mind and only wake up in a flopsweat once or twice. The Raptors are a good team with big-game experience and a revered head coach, Toronto is a tough place to play for these Sixers (doubly true for the one guy who wasn't even invited), and well we didn't really think we were gonna sweep this series, did we? Joel didn't have to hit the big shot that won them the game in OT for it still to count as a pretty productive start to the trip for the big man.
But, well... he was gonna have to hit the big shot that won them the game eventually. If not in OT, if not in this game, if not in this series, then just... sometime. This is what I wrote about going into the series, because it was the one thing that we hadn't really seen Joel do in the playoffs (or really anywhere else recently): Hit the dagger shot, or at least make the dagger play, that officially carries your team to the other side of the mountain. Help helps and blowouts are wonderful, but at some point, to be the baddest dude in the union, to be the guy JoJo wants to be and that we all believe him capable of being, he was gonna have to show that he could do it himself, and do it when the game was at its tightest. That could've meant grinding out buckets in the post, or getting to the line, or making the extra pass or getting the offensive board or block or whatever else would have been needed to secure the game. In Game Three, though, that meant navigating a full-hearted pick set by Tobias Harris, receiving a frictionless sideline pass delivered by Danny Green, and just sticking a buzzer-beating three in the souls of Fred Van Vleet and Precious Achiuwa. There's something to be said in art for not leaving much up for interpretation, you know.
Now, I'm good. The Sixers will almost certainly win this series, which rules, and they should have a pretty good chance at beating Miami (or Atlanta? we still have to say "or Atlanta"?) in the next round, which would also be goddamn dynamite. Further than that, who knows -- maybe, maybe not, though less impractical-feeling to hope for with every game. But even if this is as good as it gets this postseason, that's gonna be a dayenu from me. I love and root for Joel Embiid as much as (perhaps more than) I love and root for the Philadelphia 76ers, and this is as meaningful a milestone moment as we've ever shared with him. It's what I asked for and what he's delivered. There are further discussions to be had about player and team, but writing this tonight all I care about is that I said before the series It's Joel Embiid or It's the Raptors, and now It's Officially Joel Embiid. I'll go to bed relieved knowing this, and I'll wake up actually happy.