The Philadelphia 76ers were in a bit of trouble on Wednesday night in Game 3. The Toronto Raptors had them right where they wanted them as they were up 17 and the crowd at Scotiabank Arena was loud, they were passionate, and the Sixers seemed out of sorts.
Then, Philadelphia kept chipping away and chipping away and that eventually led to a 104-101 overtime win on a Joel Embiid game-winner with 0.8 seconds left. The Sixers now have a 3-0 stranglehold on the series and, as everybody knows, no team in NBA history has ever come back from down 0-3 to win the series.
Embiid has turned into the perfect basketball villain for Toronto and the Raptors certainly felt the sting of his shot as Toronto star Fred VanVleet told Doug Smith of The Toronto Star:
“For a guy who has got better seemingly every year he has played, he’s at a really high level right now,” Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said. “I thought Precious (Achiuwa) did a solid job on him for most of the game, but he was able to get free late and kind of impose his will.
“He made a couple of tough jumpers, and obviously the last one, so we got to do a better job on him.”
The shot seemed like one where Embiid put some Toronto demons to rest a bit. Scotiabank Arena has been a house of horrors for him and the Sixers recently with the biggest example being the Kawhi Leonard shot in Game 7 of 2019.
Raptors coach Nick Nurse also told The Toronto Star:
“Got to think about this but that’s about a tough a loss as I can remember here for my time,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “Obviously, if we pull that thing out, we got ourselves a series and, instead, you got yourself a really, really deep hole to dig out of.”
The Sixers will be looking to close out a sweep on Saturday afternoon in Game 4 and advance to Round 2.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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