After completing what was, both in its statistical measure and in the overall quality of his play, a performance as good or better than any in the 60-year history of the 76ers, Joel Embiid lounged at his locker in the Wells Fargo Center, his feet submerged in a bucket of ice and water, his legs peeking out of the slosh as if they were giant bottles of celebratory champagne.
His box score line Sunday night, in the Sixers’ 105-98 victory over the Utah Jazz, had been so wild that one might have thought a child had been fiddling with the official scorer’s computer keys: 59 points on just 28 shots from the field, 20-of-24 from the free-throw line, 11 rebounds, eight assists, seven blocked shots. “I’ve never seen a more dominating performance when you look at both offense and defense,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said.
If anything, though, the timeliness of his finest moments of the night had been more impressive. In the fourth quarter, for instance, Embiid scored 26 of the Sixers’ 27 points. But his best sequence came on defense, when, with just less than three minutes left in regulation, he protected a two-point lead by helping on a pick-and-roll set by the Jazz, coming out of nowhere to block Lauri Markkanen’s attempt at a driving left-handed layup. The only way he might have improved upon his night would have been if he had sunk the turnaround three-pointer he took in the game’s final minute, with the win in hand.
“I made that one harder than it needed to be,” he said.
The same has been true for the Sixers through 14 games this season. They’re 7-7, and everything has been harder for a team that was presumed to be a contender for, at least, the top seed in the Eastern Conference and, at most, an NBA championship. Embiid experienced a relatively minor incident of plantar fasciitis during the summer, which threw off his conditioning regimen, then contracted a non-COVID illness once the season began, which caused him to miss four recent games. James Harden will be out for a month with a tendon strain in his right foot. Tyrese Maxey has been brilliant at times, but his shooting has been inconsistent.
Those issues might yet solve themselves; Embiid’s 101 combined points Saturday and Sunday, against the Hawks and Jazz, suggest he already has returned to game shape. But his special game Sunday brought a familiar problem to bear for the Sixers. From Amir Johnson to Greg Monroe, from Al Horford to DeAndre Jordan, the Sixers for years have failed to find someone, anyone, who can keep them from falling apart in Embiid’s absence. So far, this season has been nothing new. They remain god awful without him — the Jazz outscored them by 18 points while he was on the bench — and Rivers is either unwilling or unable to settle on a backup center who can keep the Sixers from sinking like a stone whenever Embiid takes a seat.
Take Sunday: To spell Embiid, Rivers called on Paul Reed, who played less than five minutes and missed both of his shots from the field — one an air ball. Montrezl Harrell, whom Rivers had not played in two of the three previous games, got less than six minutes of action. He did jackhammer back-to-back dunks in the third quarter to tie the score at 74, but he is averaging less than 11 minutes a game this season.
Signed by team president Daryl Morey in September to a two-year contract worth more than $5 million, Harrell was supposed to be the player who lightened Embiid’s burden. He should be that player now, but he hasn’t played so little since 2015-16, his rookie year, and it’s difficult to believe he’ll remain content in so limited a role. Rivers has time here to figure out how to maximize him, if he’s so inclined. The trouble is, he doesn’t sound like he is.
“This is going to be [in] flux all year,” Rivers said. “Right now, we are riding the hot hand or if one guy is struggling, you go with the other guy. Paul’s had two or three tough games in a row, and Trez came in. One thing he can do is run the team. It will be that way all year, though I’m fine if that’s not. That would mean that one of the two guys have just taken that position, and neither one has done that yet.”
Fine. Give Harrell the opportunity and the time to take it, then. The most telling aspect of Joel Embiid’s magnificent performance was that the Sixers needed every point, every rebound, every blocked shot to beat the Jazz. Relying on a great player’s greatest night isn’t a sustainable formula for anything other than repeating the disappointing conclusions that have characterized every season of Embiid’s career.
But Sunday showed that that fruitless pattern is playing out again: Rivers is coaching as if he can’t afford to take Embiid off the floor and has no other recourse. Which means Embiid will wear down or suffer another injury. Which means the memory of what he did Sunday will fade into another long summer of excuses and questions and anger over expectations unmet. Into nothing worth celebrating.
