The Heat Have No Answer For Joel Embiid
Good performance or bad, Embiid’s sheer presence is enough to tilt the scales heavily in the direction of his team outperforming the other team when he’s in the game.
Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA. Mike’s writing is brought to you by Body Bio, supplements based on science, focusing on your gut and brain health. Get 20% off E-Lyte and all Body Bio products with promo code RTRS20 at Body Bio’s website.
All throughout Joel Embiid’s career, the one stat that has been far and away the most consistent has been this: the Sixers are far, far better when Embiid is on the floor. Good performance, bad performance, doesn’t matter; his sheer presence is enough to tilt the scales heavily in the direction of his team outperforming the other team when he’s in the game.
In Game 4, Embiid didn’t post an overly gaudy plus/minus — he was +5 in 38 minutes — but the same obvious dynamic was brightly on display: his sheer presence is a complete and total game changer. While James Harden’s fourth quarter explosion stole the show on Sunday night, it was Embiid’s two-way presence that set the stage for this win.
Through the first two games, Miami’s defensive schemes had totally flummoxed the Sixers. They were switching most of the Sixers’ ball screens, cheating heavily off of the Sixers’ role players in the corners during isolations, and at times sending two defenders at Harden. With Embiid in the picture, those schemes become largely untenable.
Miami has decided that they will switch on Embiid’s ball screens, front the post, and send help from the low man to dissuade the entry pass. In Games 3 and 4, the Sixers have done an excellent job of maneuvering off the ball to make that impossible.
Here’s a possession from early in Game 4. The Heat switch this Maxey-Embiid pick and roll, leaving Max Strus on Embiid, thus requiring Butler to cheat off of Danny Green in the Dunker spot.
Green smartly cuts to the top of the key, and the ball reverses to Harden, who then lofted a beautiful pass over the top for an Embiid layup.
The Sixers’ ability to take advantage of the roaming defenders behind Embiid who were trying to take away entry passes was on display all night long. No such example was more exciting than the Maxey-Harris lob late in the fourth quarter.
After the Heat switched the Maxey-Embiid pick and roll, Butler is cheating way off of Harris in the corner to deny the entry pass. Harris simply sneaks behind Butler, and Maxey throws a gorgeous entry pass.
Maxey links up with Tobias on the alley-oop!#NBAPlayoffs presented by Google Pixel on TNT pic.twitter.com/rsTmhazqHo
— NBA (@NBA) May 9, 2022
That play, of course, won’t go down as an assist for Embiid, but it may as well. While Embiid’s stats were minimal in crunch time, the Sixers still leveraged his presence to break Miami’s defense in a way that they simply were unable to do in Games 1 and 2.
Even on plays where he never touches the ball, the attention he garners is enough to make him an effective fulcrum of the offense. Take this play, for example, where the Heat again switch Strus onto Embiid, thus putting them into a series of rotations, and eventually leaving a wide open lane to the basket after Harden blows by Adebayo.
The problem if you’re Miami is that there is no easy solution here. Overextend, and you’ll get carved up by cuts and passes over the top. Fail to provide enough help on the back end, you’re powerless against Embiid:
The other option, of course, is to stop switching the Sixers’ ball screens so as to avoid having a guard or wing on Embiid in the first place. That option seems logical; it’s what I would do if I were Miami. But it still will force you to play drop coverage, which the Harden-Embiid pick and roll has feasted on throughout their short tenure together. It also would allow Maxey to get going in the half court in a way that he hasn’t quite been able to do in this series — Maxey is much better against the drop than he is against, say, Bam Adebayo on a switch.
As good as the Sixers were against this coverage, they still have room to improve. If you watched the TNT halftime show, you likely saw Kenny Smith’s compilation of botched entry passes. Even when the Sixers diagnose the action properly, and even prepare the proper counter, they’re still sometimes botching the play. The fact, though, that they can still milk even more out of this dynamic is encouraging.
Regardless, the point remains that Joel Embiid has completely changed this series with his presence alone. Make no mistake about Embiid’s so-so numbers, his presence is completely wrecking Miami’s defense, and there are no great answers as to what they can do differently. And oh by the way, we have yet to make mention of Embiid’s game-changing presence on the defensive end, as well.
After Game 3 of the Toronto series, I somewhat boldly proclaimed that the Sixers would dispatch the Heat in 6 games. What we’ve seen in the past two games from Embiid are exactly what led me to that prediction. The Heat have no answer for guarding him, and they simply lack the shot creation and shooting that would allow them to keep up on the other end. I’m not quite ready to declare this series over — I think Miami will make more shots than they did in Games 3 and 4, and I’m skeptical that Harden can keep up his shooting pace. But these past two games have made clear that there is an obvious talent disparity here. The Sixers are the more skilled team, and even with a hobbled Embiid, they should have enough to win two out of three games against this team.