BOSTON — Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid had the last laugh on Saturday night.
F**k Embiid! F**k Embiid! F**k Embiid!
In the second quarter of Game 7, as Embiid took a trip to the free-throw line with over five minutes left, that was the only thing the 2023 NBA MVP could hear. Boston Celtics fans, accustomed to watching Embiid falter against them in the playoffs for years, tried everything to throw him off.
But nothing worked.
“Obviously, coming back down 3-1 is tough,” Embiid said after Philadelphia’s
109-100 win. “I understand it because we just did it. Then, missing three of those games, and really four, because the first game was kind of just me getting back to myself. It’s tough, but it feels good to win. Obviously, we got a bigger goal in mind, but finally beating these guys feels pretty good.”
Before Saturday night, the Celtics had Embiid’s number. He hadn’t survived a playoff matchup against Boston in three previous instances (2018, 2020, 2023), plus the Celtics — in their 79-year history — had never blown a 3-1 series lead, nor had they been eliminated by the Sixers in 44 years. Historically, Boston had gone 32-0 when holding a 3-1 lead, while Philadelphia had been 0-18 when trailing in that situation.
Three weeks after undergoing emergency appendectomy surgery in Houston, Embiid went toe-to-toe with the biggest moment of his career — and conquered. He dominated the Celtics and made an example out of their defense while coach Joe Mazzulla desperately threw the kitchen sink at him. Boston trainer Drew Moore even got in on the psychological antics by refusing to hand the game ball to Embiid after a Celtics turnover, leading to a tense encounter on the sidelines.
Still, nothing could faze Embiid — not a chant, not the antics, not even the 18 Celtics banners hanging above him or the playoff demons that have haunted him throughout his career.
Embiid finished with a game-high 34 points with 12 rebounds and six assists to lead the Sixers to their biggest playoff comeback in franchise history. Twice, he dropped 30 points on the Celtics and single-handedly turned the series around just as Boston had Philadelphia on the ropes, battling for dear life.
When assessing the series immediately after Saturday night’s loss, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla began by highlighting Embiid.
“What changed in this series was Joel Embiid came back,” Mazzulla said, “and that’s what changed in the series.”
Boston failed to fully take advantage of Embiid’s absence to begin the series by losing the second game at home. Embiid returned when the series arrived in Philadelphia for Game 4 and proceeded to average 28 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists on 44.3 percent from the field for the series.
In Game 5, Embiid made a critical adjustment after shooting 0-of-5 from 3-point range in the first half. He abandoned the deep ball in the second half and flipped the script, shooting 7-of-10 from the field by finding offense exclusively inside the paint. Mazzulla threw Neemias Queta, Nikola Vučević, and Luka Garza at Embiid, and it didn’t make a difference.
Embiid backed them down, left them in the dust, and knocked down turnaround jumpers from the mid-range. In the second half, Embiid scored five times against Queta, five times against Vučević, and twice against Garza.
“It was tough,” Jaylen Brown said. “Embiid put a lot of pressure on us — on all our bigs, all our guards. We didn’t really have an answer for him. We tried a bunch of different things, and he’s just a big body. He also was flopping around, and he got some extra calls, and they rewarded him for that. But that’s the league that we’re in.”
In the fourth quarter of Game 5, Embiid dodged an injury scare when he took a fall and immediately grabbed his left knee — prompting a brief trip to Philadelphia’s locker room alongside a team trainer. It wasn’t the first fall Embiid took throughout the series, although the 10-year veteran, who’s battled scrutiny for his extensive injury history, claimed he feels just fine.
“I feel great. I feel amazing. I was faking it,” Embiid said of his health.
Relishing the moment Embiid had long awaited, he made sure to get everything off his chest when he spoke at the podium at TD Garden. Embiid credited his teammates for the jobs they did against Boston’s biggest offensive threats — the Celtics were held to under 100 points four times in the series.
“Those guys really took on the challenge of guarding those guys,” Embiid highlighted. “Whether it’s (Jayson) Tatum, (Payton) Pritchard — No. 11 — Jaylen Brown. So it helps when you have that. That means you can’t overhelp. You can just do your job, and obviously, knowing Boston, kind of live and die by the three. So you take that away.”
Embiid continued: “I told the guys if we wanna go two for twos against them, we’re going to win that battle because we have a lot of mismatches, starting with me.”
He refused to refer to Pritchard by name as a response to his comments from earlier in the series when Pritchard was asked about Boston’s game plan for Embiid’s then-possible return.
Embiid used Pritchard’s comments as fuel and revisited them following Game 7.
“It does also help when I saw No. 11 on their team before I came back, he said they didn’t care if I was playing or not, and they hadn’t even adjusted or had some sort of game plan for me,” Embiid said. “So, I think it also helps that when the other team doesn’t worry about you and have some solid game plan being prepared for you. So it helps you have better games. I thank No. 11 for that.”
