Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid was absolutely dominant Monday night as his team took a 2-0 series lead in their first-round NBA Playoff series against the Toronto Raptors.
Embiid scored 19 points in the first quarter alone. At that point, he was on pace for 44 free-throw attempts as Toronto struggled containing the NBA MVP finalist.
Embiid finished the game scoring 31 points on 9-of-16 shooting. He also hit on 12-of-14 from the charity stripe in Philadelphia’s 112-97 win.
As the game was coming to a conclusion, Joel Embiid was seen getting into a war of words with Raptors head coach Nick Nurse.
“He said ‘I’m gonna keep making all my free throws if you keep fouling me,’ and I said, ‘Well, you might have to.’”
Toronto Raptors’ Nick Nurse on Joel Embiid spat, via Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo! Sports
Joel Embiid could lead the Philadelphia 76ers to a quick series win
Simply put, Toronto does not have anyone to bang with Embiid inside. Pascal Siakam and Khem Birch just aren’t going to be able to hang with him. It’s been proven through two games of this first-round playoff series.
- Joel Embiid stats (first two games): 25.0 PPG, 13.0 RPG
Sure it was Tyrese Maxey who led Philadelphia to a Game 1 win with Embiid shooting a mere 5-of-15 from the field.
Even then, the dominance we saw from Embiid Monday night in Philadelphia made it clear that Embiid can impose his will against a smaller Raptors squad.
With this series now heading back to Toronto, one has to wonder how the Raptors are going to respond after losing the first two games by a combined 35 points. If it means continuing to foul Embiid, so be it. Nurse made that clear.