Joel Embiid Still Needs to Save His Season Tonight (Even If He Can't Save the Sixers)

We may very well be doomed in this series, but our MVP can leave it with a major corner turned in his career if he can be great all the way to the final whistle.

Say this about Process Sixers Fandom: It is a rich source to draw from. Whenever we catch the aroma of a devastating Sixers playoff loss crossing our seasoned palates, we can give the sour stench a big sniff and pick out the various notes in it like Jimmy Butler-level wine connoisseurs. Ahhhhh, I'm getting flavors of the 2021 Game 5 against the Hawks, with hints of the 2022 Game 6 against Miami, with.... yes, that must be it... the slightest insinuation of the 2019 Game 4 against the Raptors! There's some good playoff memories scattered around in there too -- I think -- but it's the tragic ones that really turn us into professional archivists, with disturbingly comprehensive mental catalogs of the various styles and vintages of Sixers basketball misery. After 10-plus years of this, it's good to at least feel like we're an expert in something. 

I bring all that up to say this: After adding another bottle to our already fully stocked cellar of Sixers anguish with Sunday's Game Four loss to the Knicks, we all seem to agree the Sixers are probably going to lose this series -- and chances are, it'll be tonight, in Game Five. It's just a question of which vintage of elimination loss it's going to be. Will it be an '19 Raptors Game 7, where they fight to the very end but lose in a heartbreaking fashion that hasn't even been invented previously? Will it be a '21 Hawks Game 7, where the Sixers seem like they should be playing well enough to win, but make a million tiny mistakes and at least one iconic panic play that ultimately ends up dooming them? Or will it be a '23 Celtics Game 7, where things slip away slowly and then very quickly and suddenly we're left wondering why we ever rooted for these fucking assholes in the first place? 

Maybe you don't think it matters. Maybe you think all losses are basically created equal, in that none of them are wins. Fair enough. But even if they do lose tonight, and get eliminated only in five games this time, I care very much about the manner in which they lose. And that's because I need Joel Embiid to end this series the way he started it. I need him to end this series as the unquestioned best player on the floor. I need him to see that good night coming and rage even harder against the dying of the light as a result. I need it more than I need the Sixers to force a Game Six in this series, honestly. And so does he. 

First, though, let me get this out of the way: The Sixers can win the game tonight. I know that the odds are against us both literally and figuratively, and I know that if they do lose this game -- particularly if it's in uninspiring fashion -- we'll talk about this series years from now and say, as we always do, that We All Knew that it was over after Game Four, and that they had no chance in Game Five. Knowing that this is our likely future, let me interject once more from the present: BULLLLLLLLLSHIT. The Sixers absolutely can win Game Five tonight. The Sixers could have won any game in this series: they led each in the second half, they took each down to the wire, they were never more than an if this then that or two away from winning each. They still didn't in three out of four of 'em (which is certainly relevant to this discussion!), but they were never totally out of any of 'em until they were over, and I refuse to hear that they're out of Game Five before it's even begun. I will acknowledge that it will take something of a miracle for them to come all the way back from down 3-1 -- though if this is The Year, etc. etc. -- but after their inspiring Game Three win, I think that at the very least they've earned the right to get properly buried by the Knicks without us prematurely laying the dirt ourselves. 

If they do lose the series, though -- even if they lose tonight -- I think this can still be something for the Sixers to build on. And yes, believe me, I am extremely aware of how patently absurd it is to be talking about moral victories and taking the long view eight years into Joel Embiid's career and 11 years after Sam Hinkie's hiring, especially in the context of a potential five-game first-round elimination. But it's the reality of the situation here. Because even in his seventh postseason appearance, Joel Embiid still has the chance to do something against New York that he's never done: be great against a good team for a whole series. 

Some people may already be scoffing at the use of the word "great," pointing at the three losses and some of Embiid's underwhelming fourth-quarter numbers and blah de blah de bloodey blah. Let me say this in no uncertain terms: Joel Embiid has been fucking great in this series. He is averaging 35-9-6 -- leading the entire playoffs in scoring btw, at least as of Monday -- on not great but decent shooting (45/33/85%), especially acceptable considering that he's getting to the line 15 times a game. He's averaging only three turnovers a night, and has more assists than turnovers in all four games of this series -- something he had done only four times in his last 26 playoff games before this year, stretching back to the beginning of the Atlanta series in 2021. And of course, he's done it all with one leg and one eye and after missing most of the regular season's second half, all of which has led to compromised rebounding and defense that still nonetheless leaves him easily the Sixers' best rebounder and defender at all times. You can tell the importance of Embiid's overall impact the same way you can annually with the Big Man at this time of year: In every game this series, they've won the minutes he's played and lost the minutes he's sat. 

And yet, it still hasn't been enough. There's a million reasons for that, much of which is not on Joel, some of which still is. It would certainly help if anyone else on the team was as instinctual and physical on the boards as it seems like the entire Knicks rotation is. It would also help if Tyrese Maxey -- who has likewise mostly been brilliant in this series -- was just another year or two older, more experienced and more confident, so that when Embiid sits (or runs aground as he did in Quarter Four of Game Four), Tyrese could convincingly take over the attack and not get gunshy after a miss or two. It would help if the Sixers hadn't struck out at this and every other trade deadline, if they'd never given Tobias $180 million dollars, if they'd kept Mikal Bridges at the 2018 draft instead of trading him for Zhaire Smith, if they'd gotten more back for Iverson in 2006. The list goes on, as it always does. 

The Sixers’ Offense Is the Reason They Lost Game 4, Not the Rebounds

But even if he can't lead the Sixers to a first-round victory here, it'd still be a major turning point for our MVP for us to get to the end of the series and say OK but at least Joel was awesome. We've never been able to say that after an Embiid elimination. In 2018 against the Celtics, he got shut down by Al Horford and Aron Baynes in Games Two and Three, scoring a combined 42 points on 48 shots as the series slipped away. In 2019, he only broke 20 points twice in seven games against the Raptors as Marc Gasol had him in hell. In 2020, he got his points against Boston, but had just four assists combined for the entire series as the undermanned Sixers got swept. In 2021, he dominated the Hawks for 3 1/2 games, then went Lucille Bluth cold in the second half of Game Four and turned the ball over eight times in each of Games Six and Seven. In 2022, he came back from injury to gut two wins out against Miami, then went out soft as the Heat spanked the Sixers in Games Five and Six. And of course in 2023, he was up and down for five games against Boston before ending things more down than we previously thought possible in a truly pathetic Game Seven meltdown.  

He had good moments throughout those series. He was still the Sixers' best player in probably all of them. But none of them gave you that feeling you get from Embiid in the regular season, that Holy Shit How Lucky Are We to Have Joel Embiid on Our Team feeling. Most of them ended up with him being outclassed by the other team's best guy. And all of them ended in disappointment, not just from the team but from Embiid specifically. They ended with him losing his composure, doing too much, trying to save the day and ultimately just digging the Sixers' hole ever deeper. His record in elimination games is not just bad, it's been getting worse: In his last two, he's scored a total of 35 points on 42 shots while his teams lost by 33 combined points. Really, his strongest elimination performance might've been his first: Game Five against Boston in 2018, when his 27 points on 18 shots with 12 rebounds, four assists and three blocks was good, just not good enough. Not the highest bar to clear, but he's been coming in lower ever since. 

It might be too late for Joel Embiid to save the Sixers this year from the postseason demons that have plagued the team for seven straight runs now -- but he can still exorcise some of his own. All he has to do is continue his MVP-caliber play for how many more games this series lasts, starting with Game Five tonight. All he has to do is not turn into the turtled version of himself we've seen amidst his team's last two flame-outs. All he has to do is stay focused and on his game, no matter what else is going around him -- no matter how many corner threes Tobias Harris bricks, or how many offensive rebounds Kelly Oubre Jr. fails to prevent, or how much the team loses the minutes with him on the bench by. All he has to do is play like Joel Embiid, right up until the final buzzer sounds on the Sixers' 2024 postseason. 

If he can do that, it won't mean that the curse has been lifted on the Sixers' postseason woes -- not hardly. But it'll be a big question answered for him, a big knock off the negative side of his legacy's ledger. It'll wash out a lot of the sour taste he left in our mouths with his all-time rope-relinquishing non-effort in Boston last year. And it'll prove that Joel can face down a tougher, deeper opponent and not let them break him mentally, even as his body continues to betray him physically. As much as we need to see all of that from him, he probably needs to see that from himself even more. 

Because this can still go the other way, too. Yes, Joel Embiid has been awesome in this series, yes, he had his best-ever playoff performance in Game 3 to save the season, yes he's an unlucky bounce or two from being 2-2 or even 3-1 in this series. But if Joel goes 8-26 with seven turnovers and five free throw attempts tonight as the Sixers lose by 30 in front of a barking-at-the-moon NY crowd, all that goes away. If he once again brings that soft shit to an elimination game, it will not only undo basically all the progress he's made in this series, it will bury his reputation around the league six feet under Madison Square Garden, as he once again becomes a national punchline for talking the talk without walking the walk. His rep has already taken hits in this series for some cheap-shottiness and for post-game comments about the WFC home crowd being overrun with Knicks fans -- I don't find the latter all that inflammatory or interesting, but apparently many do. But at the very least, he's come correct with his own play so far. If he doesn't even have that to fall back on and the Sixers bow out of the playoffs in five games, it's once again open season on Embiid all summer and all next season, until we do this all over again in April 2025. 

It sucks to be back here: not even two weeks into the playoffs and already emotionally haggling over the manner of the Sixers' postseason exit. I hope the story of their playoffs is far from over, that it can include a breakthrough performance in enemy territory tonight and then a reclaiming of the home crowd in Philly on Thursday. I hope the Sixers surprise us with their toughness and their resilience. But if nothing else, I hope Joel Embiid changes the most damning part of his personal narrative, and that he's joined by Tyrese Maxey in giving the New York Knicks at least one more game of absolutely everything that they can handle. Spike has long stipulated that it being The Year doesn't have to be about championships or even series victories, but instead in our best players for once actually running through the finish line, in feeling we got everything from them that they could possibly give. We can still end things with that feeling, even if things end tonight. Embiid has led the way the through four games so far, but he'll have to do it for at least once more. Otherwise we're all right back where we started, and in for a long 12 months of once again trying to convince ourselves why next year will finally be the year where things -- something -- ANYTHING -- will finally be different.