The Utah Jazz tried everything they possibly could on Sunday night against Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid. Other than rookie Walker Kessler, they don’t have much size to match up with him, and they were victimized.
Embiid poured in an incredible night with a career-high 59 points with 11 rebounds, eight assists and seven blocks to tie that career-high. The big fella shot 19-for-28 from the floor, and he was 20-for-24 from the free-throw line in a 105-98 win at home. He was absolutely scintillating on the night.
Former Sixers guard JJ Redick hopped on his podcast, “The Old Man and the Three,” and gave his thoughts on what Embiid did out on the floor as he felt sorry for the Jazz on the night:
That’s as dominant as I’ve ever seen Joel. I just felt so bad for the Utah Jazz. Just no real options to match up with him and you saw that specifically in the fourth quarter where they played Lauri Markkanen and Jarred Vanderbilt and those are essentially the two guys that were guarding him and the Sixers, I think, did a great job of mixing up where he was catching the ball. So he would catch it at the block, obviously, they were doubling. That’s a big part of his eight assists last night, but he’s so good at recognizing when those doubles are coming, that he’s just gonna catch it at the elbow, face up, and either wait for the double or go 1-on-1 and there’s just no answer with those two guys at that size.
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Embiid was obviously terrific and the Sixers will certainly take that type of performance from him. Now, they need to make sure he gets his rest over the next four days before they take on the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday at home.
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