National Basketball Association

NBA playoff dispatches: Joel Embiid fails to galvanize 76ers

Updated May. 3, 2023 11:06 p.m. ET

FOX Sports writers are providing takeaways from games throughout the NBA playoffs. Here are their thoughts from Wednesday.

Celtics 121, 76ers 87: Joel Embiid fails to galvanize 76ers

It was an exciting 24 hours in Joel Embiid-land. First it was announced that he’d been voted NBA MVP. Then we learned that, after a knee sprain had sidelined him for the final game of the Philadelphia 76ers’ first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets and Game 1 of their second-round matchup with the Boston Celtics, he’d be returning to Boston's TD Garden floor Wednesday night for Game 2. It wasn’t quite Willis Reed running out of the tunnel, but you figured the newly-crowned MVP gutting through an injury to join his teammates on the floor would inject some juice into the group. Especially coming off the Sixers’ electric Game 1 victory.

About that…

Entering the game, the Sixers might have been energized by the return of Embiid, but they certainly didn’t look like it once the action began. They couldn’t hit a shot (6-for-30 from deep) and couldn't prevent the Celtics from hitting theirs (20-for-51 on triples). The Celtics carved the Sixers up, 121-87. The series is now tied at one heading back to Philadelphia, where Game 3 will be played Friday night. And the question that could very well determine the series’ winner is whether the Embiid we saw on Wednesday night is the one we’re going to see for the next two weeks. Because if it is, the Sixers are cooked.

The best way to summarize Embiid’s play is that he looked like someone playing through a serious knee injury. He was slow and clunky. The assertive, aggressive force that we’re so used to seeing from him was nowhere to be found. He took just nine shots in 27 minutes, hitting four. He did get to the free-throw eight times, hitting seven of them, which is how he finished with 15 points, but he didn’t have a single assist and only pulled down three rebounds. He did block five shots, but that was also because the Celtics weren’t afraid to challenge him.

To be clear: None of this is meant as a criticism. Embiid is clearly not 100 percent. And he deserves credit for fighting through the injury and whatever discomfort and pain he’s in. But given how he looked, it is fair to wonder whether the Sixers would have been better off with Embiid skipping one more game, giving him an extra two days to recover before Game 3.

Because it’s unlikely the Sixers get another 45-point outburst from James Harden like they did in Game 1. And coming into the series, most experts and fans would have pegged the Celtics as the favorites, meaning the Sixers were always going to be fighting an uphill battle. To win, they’re going to need a better version of Embiid. After Game 2, it’s fair to wonder whether that’s something we’re going to see.

Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. He is the author of "Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports." Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.