TORONTO – The North remembers.
When Joel Embiid slammed home a windmill jam to put his Philadelphia 76ers up 26 with 5:30 to play in what ended up being a blowout Game 3 victory over the Toronto Raptors, he celebrated with a goofy airplane celebration, running the length of floor with his seven-foot-five wingspan extended out while tilting side to side much to the delight of the fans who packed Wells Fargo Center.
Flash forward to Game 5 in the much-less friendly confines of Scotiabank Arena, and at the 9:05 mark of the fourth quarter Embiid can be seen checking out with his team having thoroughly been embarrassed down 28 when the Raptors faithful chose to remind Embiid of his airplane moment.
“I didn’t notice, I just saw them shake their bodies. I didn’t pay attention to what the hell they were doing,” Embiid said of the Toronto fans’ mocking facsimile of his Game 3 celebration. “I don’t care if [my celebrations] offends anybody about what I do, it’s all about having fun. So I don’t care, and I’m gonna do that because I know that I’m gonna dominate.”
Pretty tough words for a player who supposedly is the 76ers’ best, but simply didn’t have it for them as Philadelphia was pushed to the brink of elimination after getting crushed 125-89 on Tuesday night.
Embiid finished the evening with an invisible 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting along with just six rebounds and a very apparent eight turnovers.
To his credit, Embiid acknowledged that he needs to give more if the Sixers are to stay alive in this series.
“It sucks. I know I’ve gotta do a better job for us to win. I’ve got to do the little things,” he said. “When I’m not scoring the ball I’ve gotta show up, setting screens, I’ve gotta do a better job of rebounding the ball, so that’s on me. I can’t control my physical condition, I can control how much I push myself and I try to do that, but I’ve just gotta do more.”
As has been the case for nearly the entire series, Embiid has been battling a sickness that just won’t go away, so it’s tough to expect a huge amount of productivity out of him. Or, at least it would if he’d just learn to tone down his cocky inclinations.
After the game finished, Embiid was spotted telling Raptors global ambassador Drake, “I’ll be back,” essentially guaranteeing a 76ers Game 6 victory in Philadelphia on Thursday to force a Game 7 on Sunday back in Toronto.
A fine sentiment for anyone other than a player who actively spent a great deal of time trolling his opponent and has then been seen looking very sullen on the bench over the course of the next two games as the Raptors have taken control of the series.
It’s because of this that Scotiabank Arena appeared to spark to life when Raptors centres Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka went on their own personal 9-2 scoring run at the start of the second quarter with Embiid trying to check them and looking helpless as they both went on to have their best games of the series.
And, most poignantly, when Kawhi Leonard offered the coup de grace on the evening with his massive late third-quarter crowning of Embiid that also sent the Raptors bench into a tizzy.
Sick as Embiid has been, the truth of the matter is he really did bring this on himself.
In Game 3 he was brilliant, scoring 33 points and collecting 11 rebounds in a huge Sixers win where his airplane shenanigans just seemed like light-hearted fun. In the two games since, however, he only has 24 points on 7-of-17 shooting and has been a combined minus-32.
It’s fine to have fun on the court, but you can’t follow up obvious taunts at your opponent with that kind of pitiful performance and not expect to take some heat.
He’s taken it now and the Sixers are reeling because of it.
So the question now is, how do you fix it?
“I’ve gotta have fun, that’s one of the keys of me playing so well the whole season. I’ve gotta smile on the court,” Embiid said of what he can do to be better in Game 6. “I’ve gotta lift my teammates up, I shouldn’t care about offending anyone. I’ve just gotta be myself and not really care and do whatever I want to because at the end of the day that’s how I dominate.”
Positivity can be a powerful force, but is it really enough to turn around an entire series? For Embiid and the Sixers’ sake that may just be all they have to go on now.
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