PHILADELPHIA — The ending isn't much different.
After another road win by Tom Thibodeau and company in the City of Brotherly Love, the Philadelphia 76ers left their home floor once again as a throng of New York fans chanted “Let's go Knicks” again. . This time, Karl-Anthony Towns got the walk-off love as he left the Wells Fargo Center court with his father in tow, quickly followed by Josh Hart and Miles McBride.
Joel Embiid and the Sixers left the floor a long time ago.
Their season had already gotten off to a terrible start, filled with injuries, doubts and bad showdown moments, but the spiral continued Tuesday as Philadelphia fell to 2-8 with a 111-99 loss to the Knicks. . But Philadelphia is hoping things bottom out here.
Well, maybe it will be Wednesday when the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers play here.
For now, the Sixers have to console themselves with Embiid missing the first six games of the season while continuing to rehab his left knee, and then Embiid receiving a three-game suspension from the NBA against Philadelphia. He only returned to the game on Tuesday after receiving the injury. On Nov. 2, an Inquirer columnist during a postgame incident. The columnist had written some incendiary opinion pieces about Embiid's conditioning, but he also talked about Embiid's late brother Arthur and Embiid's son, Arthur, who was featured in the Oct. 23 column. That resonated with the 30-year-old Embiid.
On Tuesday, Embiid was far from his dominant self. He struggled, making just 2-of-11 from the floor and scoring 13 points in 26 minutes. Towns, his old and perhaps now former nemesis, dominated all night, finishing with 21 points and 13 rebounds. Towns finished the game for New York, but Embiid hung on for the final few minutes to make sure the Sixers didn't spend more than the 25 to 30 minutes they had scheduled before the game.
“You can do whatever you want in practice and scrimmage, but in a game it's a different story,” Embiid said after the game. “it's okay”
His words, the troubles of the franchise.
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Embiid suffered injuries late in the regular season and in the playoffs, so he wasn't feeling well for most of the spring when the championship was decided. Last year, he was sidelined for two months with a torn meniscus in his left knee, then suffered an attack of Bell's palsy during Philadelphia's series loss to the Knicks. So the Sixers and their superstar agreed to let him miss regular-season games this season to give him the best chance of staying healthy through April and May. The organization's false statements cost the Sixers $100,000, but I doubt they cared that much. Embiid says it's up to him whether he plays or not, but of course that's not the case, it's not really the case.
Yes, Embiid played for the United States in the Olympics and showed up when America needed it most, including in the semifinals against Nikola Jokic and Serbia. However, that stint ended more than two months before the start of training camp, and it turned out he was on vacation.
Against New York on Tuesday, he missed his first five shots from the floor and didn't make a field goal until his third 3-pointer with nine minutes left. Embiid got to the line as usual, making 8 of 8 free throws in the first half. However, Embiid was significantly behind throughout the second half. He was pulling on his shorts after finishing his first stint of the second half. He asked the crowd to stand at the end of the third quarter, but because New York pulled away, he was unable to get Philadelphia to stand up in the fourth quarter.
“When he's playing well, he's kind of in control of the game on the offensive end,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said after the game. “He either creates good shots on his own or creates a lot of defensive schemes against him, which creates much easier shots for our players. It's part of the rhythm. And that's part of the conditioning and stuff like that. He's a great shooter. I think that's going to come back as well.”
The Sixers now need to combine their hopes of finding continuity with yet another new core group.
Paul George, the team's best free agent acquisition in the offseason, just returned from missing the first five games of the season with a preseason bone bruise. But he was great on Tuesday, looking exactly like the smooth scorer and facilitator the Sixers hope to have, finishing with a game-high 29 points. However, guard Tyrese Maxey, who took a big step forward playing alongside Embiid last season, missed his third consecutive game with a hamstring strain. Nurse doesn't have much time left to evaluate who plays best with whom.
Example: Philadelphia brought in Gershon Yabusele, who starred on the French Olympic team and led Les Bleus to a silver medal. he was sensational. The Sixers hoped he could play in a small-ball center unit. And with Embiid out, they're going to take a closer look at him. Through the first nine games, he shot over 43 percent from three with a decent amount. But going forward, Nurse will have to play alongside Yabusele and Embiid, with Yabusele playing more of a power forward role. The shots are different. The rhythm is different. It's different now that Yabusele is defending on the other side.
Nurse was exactly what he wanted to see late in the first quarter, when Embiid returned from the bench minutes later, drew two Knicks at the top of the key, and fed an open Yabusele on the wing for three points. We got what we were looking for late in the first quarter. It was Yabusele's only shot of seven attempts all night.
Still, it's clear how formidable the Sixers are when Embiid returns to his old self, surrounded by a healthy George and Maxey. Solid role players like Kelly Oubre Jr., Yabusele, and Caleb Martin. Jared McCain is a completely fearless newcomer. There's also a stash of veterans like Reggie Jackson, Kyle Lowry and Andre Drummond. Philadelphia's offensive potential is incredible when everyone is healthy, so it's doubly bad for the Sixers, whose abysmal start didn't bury their playoff chances in a not-fully-functional Eastern Conference. I'm lucky. The Sixers played Tuesday with one game left in the play-in round.
George knows Embiid is under pressure. He was a franchise player for the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, and later became a co-franchise player for the Los Angeles Clippers along with Kawhi Leonard. The weight of being a man feels like wearing a linen jersey and concrete Nikes.
“I don't think it's any pressure for him,” George said. “He's the piece. He's the process. I think he should find his way. We're here to keep things going until he comes to his senses. But… I don't think there's any pressure on him to do anything extra. He'll find his rhythm as the game progresses as we learn how to attack him and play around him. . I've seen it in practice, so I know he's not far off.”
I don't think the urgency of Embiid's 2-8 start and the fact that he's nearing the end of his prime means he needs to come back sooner rather than more slowly through the regular season as is the long-term plan. I asked. He reflected on his rookie season, when he underwent multiple foot surgeries and took two years off to rehab. Embiid made a splash from the start, finishing third in Rookie of the Year voting despite the Sixers keeping him out of all but one game in the second half of the season.
“We were still very competitive,” he said of the 28-54 season. “And even that year, I thought if they let me finish the year, we actually had a chance to make the playoffs. There's definitely an urgency. But we weren't healthy. You also have to understand that we're all coming back. Like I said, I think we have a pretty good chance because we're on the floor (together). .”
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” William Butler Yeats wrote a century ago about something entirely different. But it's up to Embiid to make sure people here don't start to feel connected.
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(Photo: David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images)
