Philadelphia 76ers need more Joel Embiid in Game 2; How it will happen

The Philadelphia 76ers need more Joel Embiid in Game 2 vs. Boston

In a Game 1 101-109 loss to the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid received one pass from his teammates between the 5:53 mark and 0:16 mark in the fourth quarter according to The Athletic’s John Hollinger.

In just under 10 minutes of fourth-quarter play, he took five shots, the same as Tobias Harris and Josh Richardson and two less than Alec Burks.

While an egalitarian offense is much prettier and generally more successful than “let’s give it to our guy and make him go get a bucket” offense, Philly needs big performances out of Joel with Ben Simmons sidelined. Joel should be demanding the ball and head coach Brett Brown should be giving it to him as much as possible.

More from Sir Charles In Charge

Joel ended the night 8-15 from the floor with 12 free throws, equalling 26 points and 16 rebounds. For normal human beings, that’s a great stat line but Philly is fighting an uphill battle against their long-time rivals and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks they can seriously win this series.

In a similar vein to Damian Lillard taking over in the bubble, scoring an absurd amount of points, and dragging the Blazers into the playoffs, Embiid needs to take a heavier load of the scoring and drag his team past the Celtics.

On a surface level, Boston’s best players and best defenders are either guards or wings: Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kemba Walker, and Marcus Smart. With so much invested in their perimeter players, the team naturally has cheaper and weaker big men, something that hasn’t ailed them at all this season.

This may be the biggest test for the Celtics roster and it’s on Joel to bring that test.

Brad Stevens played Enes “can’t play” Kanter limited minutes in Game 1, opting to go with the younger and arguably more defensively capable backup in Robert Williams.

Williams ended with two points on four shots with four fouls, but he didn’t exactly get roasted out there.

He should get roasted out there.

Joel is going up against a center rotation of Theis, Time Lord, and Kanter, which should be lunch for him.

He doesn’t have his All-Star point guard alongside him for the series but if he’s able to post up more often, work on his mid-range game as much as possible, the team will also reap the benefits that come with missing a non-shooter in Simmons.

Joel isn’t the greatest passer in the world, while he has come a long way since his rookie year, he was in the 46th percentile among all big men this season in terms of turnover percentage according to Cleaning the Glass, turning it over on 14.1 percent of his possessions. This could be magnified if he starts to have better performances and Boston starts to aggressively double his inside touches.

If he does put up monster performances and demand more defensive attention, it’ll be on him to pass out of those situations and find the open man. With Simmons out, there’s a higher chance that ‘man’ will have made more than two career threes.

Will Joel be able to find that man? Can he suddenly grow as a passer, reaching the level we’ve seen him get to when scoring?

Next. NBA: 5 players on underdog playoff teams that need to step up. dark

The playoffs are where we see players take leaps beyond their level, when they reach a higher level of basketball, excuse the trigger word, but greatness. The time to take over is now. If not, there may be some bigger questions facing the team after the season.