Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid is one of the best players in the league regardless of his position, but on Monday night he hit an all-time low as he went scoreless while shooting 0-for-11 on the night in a loss to the Toronto Raptors. He also committed four turnovers and five fouls in an overall tough night for him.
His play contributed to the Sixers going scoreless in the final four minutes of the game missing their final eight shots and committing three turnovers as a team. That poor play allowed Toronto to go on a 13-2 run led by Pascal Siakam to end the game and win it for the Raptors who were missing a multitude of players.
Raptors big man Marc Gasol was the primary defender on Embiid and he forced him into nine of the 11 misses and three of his turnovers. Gasol spoke on how he frustrated Embiid:
They have a few plays that they run for him to allow him to separate from you. I didn’t help much off those plays because it’s set up to allow him to roll and that’s the game plan we had. The coaches did a great job preparing us for the game plan.
Gasol has always been a great defender in his career even winning a Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 while with the Memphis Grizzlies and he was a key reason for the Raptors knocking off the Sixers in the 2019 playoffs.
Siakam, another key reason, had praise for Gasol and how he handled himself against the Sixers superstar as he said:
Marc is a big body, he’s smart, he has being doing it for a while. He kind of understands how to guard, and positioning. Obviously, we’re helping but I think initially, his presence is a problem for a lot of people. When we are connected as a team on defence we can do a lot of things out there.
The Sixers will meet the Raptors again eventually and they could meet again in the playoffs. It will be up to them to take the experiences from this loss and continue to learn and grow together as a group.
Embiid especially will have to figure out how best to handle the Raptors as he stated:
They are a deep team. They’ve got guys that can do a lot of things on the basketball court. They’re well coached. They did
their job and they made sure to stick with the plan they had, especially taking me out of the game. That’s also on me to try and figure out and take advantage of it. Defensively they are everywhere. They are so long and they make sure to pack the paint, and tonight we didn’t make shots. When you’re not making shots and you play against a team like that, it’s really hard. We still came pretty close, but we have to get better, especially me.
Philadelphia will look to bounce back on Wednesday when they host the Sacramento Kings. [lawrence-related id=20103,20093,20085]