PHILADELPHIA _ He began the game badly, turning the ball over the first time he touched it, catching an errant pass from JJ Redick flush in the face and having to blink three times to clear his vision. There have been all sorts of events threatening, and sometimes succeeding, to make Joel Embiid unavailable for the 76ers throughout these playoffs: a tender knee, a couple of technical fouls, a stomach illness that drained him of fluids and energy. Now here he was in Game 3 of this Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Raptors, as healthy as he's been in the postseason, and for those first few minutes he was all thumbs.
Bad start, great finish. Embiid was the best player on the floor Thursday night in a 116-95 victory _ 33 points, 10 rebounds, five blocked shots, a plus-31 in just 28 minutes of playing time � and his marvelous performance was the most important development in this series so far for the Sixers. From Marc Gasol's defense to his own gastrointestinal teacup ride, Embiid had been a ghost of himself in those two games in Toronto, missing 18 of his 25 shots from the field, scoring a total of 28 points, everyone clinging to some decent post defense and one skillful, well-timed basket at the end of Game 2 as signs that he could and would return to form.
He returned, all right. He went beyond anything anyone had seen out of him in last year's postseason or this one. He was himself again and then some: sinking 3 of 4 3-point attempts, coaxing a flagrant foul out of Pascal Siakam when Siakam tried to trip him and Embiid went flying like Bobby Orr after a big goal, surging through the lane to throw down a windmill dunk and extending his arms to his sides in the aftermath, as if he and his team were just taking off. If there was any residual self-doubt or any lingering physical effects from Games 1 and 2, he had cast them aside over the previous two days.
"With a high level of maturity and as an extremely prideful sort of student," Sixers coach Brett Brown said. "As a series unfolds, young players just sort of accrue information and experience. It's interesting for me to judge: What do those guys do with it as time unfolds, as they gain more knowledge? For those of you who do know Joel, he's intelligent. He's very intelligent. And you take that base and that pride and that competitiveness and you add a little experience to co-exist with those characteristics, and I think it produces a more informed player."
For the Sixers, that smarter Embiid produced, in turn, the kind of game that can swing a series. He was happy to engage in two-man games with Jimmy Butler and Redick, and no matter how good Gasol might be on the low block, no matter how strong and smart he is, if he has to chase Embiid to the 3-point arc, the Sixers will have every advantage over the Raptors in the half court. There was a time when Embiid might not have been content to share the spotlight and the ball as much as he has and still has to now, with so much firepower around him. But the Sixers, and he himself, are better for it. Butler had 22 points. Redick had an efficient 15. Toronto had no chance.
"The playoffs are a different sport," Brown said. "Whatever we might have judged in the regular season, everything is just amplified now. There aren't many teams still playing, and it's the NBA playoffs, and it's May, and it's rare ground that players and coaches and teams have to play at this time of year. There's a serious side, and there's now a growth of a student who understands this is a different date. It's not February. It's May. And the rules change. The rules change a lot."
The rules might change, but the Sixers' approach does not and cannot. They're the drink, and Embiid is the straw that stirs them. In one memorable sequence Thursday, he jumped to try to block a layup by Raptors guard Fred VanFleet, and when he landed he crumpled to the floor, and for a heartbeat the thunderous crowd in the Wells Fargo Center inhaled. But then he bounced up, trotted down the court, caught a pass from Butler _ with his hands, this time _ and drilled a 3-pointer.
Bad start, great finish. "I know what I am doing," Embiid said earlier in the postseason. "I am just going to play basketball and be myself." That might be all the Sixers need to get where they want to go and where, right now, it looks like they can.
