Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid is not one to mince words if he ever feels slighted. He shouldn’t at this point as he is as elite as it gets out on the floor, but in the NBA, there is always a debate about who the best is in this league.
As the Sixers were in the middle of coming up short 120-112 to the Golden State Warriors, Embiid was talking to Warriors forward Draymond Green. Embiid was in the midst of dropping 46 on 13-for-23 shooting, the big fella wanted to remind Green how tough he is to defend out on the floor.
“He (Embiid) told me, he said, ‘You know why I played like that tonight? You said Joker (Nikola Jokic) was the hardest person to guard in the league. So I took that personal’”, Green laughed while telling reporters. “And so I want to tell y’all Joel is the hardest guy to guard in the league.”
Green and the Warriors did everything they could to slow down Embiid. He still ended up with 46 points and battled through waves of defenders and different coverages in order to have success.
“You just don’t want to give a steady diet and in the fourth quarter, we just tried to throw different looks at him,” Green continued. “We fired a couple of times. We sent double teams from the top of the floor, we sent double teams from the bottom of the floor. He caught the ball at the 3-point line and we sent the double team. Coach kind of gave us the free will to just like fake some hits and then pull back and just try to keep him off balance.”
Embiid certainly had a big night for Philadelphia. There really wasn’t any answer the Warriors had for him except to really wear him down. Kevon Looney and the other Golden State big men had to battle all night long, but the big fella did begin to wear down in the fourth quarter.
“Loon and did an incredible job all night of just battling him, and in saying that, he finished with 46 points, but the way Loon battled and then just kept the body on him all night,” Green finished. “The hope is that you wear him down and some of those shots that he was making throughout the game, he got during the fourth quarter, last six minutes of the game, he missed a few of them. Just got to trust your defense and trust the process and we did a good job of that.”
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