The Philadelphia 76ers carried the momentum from their Game 2 win against the Toronto Raptors back to Philadelphia, where they put on an absolute clinic on both ends of the court to take Game 3 on Thursday, 116-95. The story of the game was Joel Embiid, who put up a monster stat line of 33 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in the win to lead six 76ers in double-figures. The Raptors received strong games from Kawhi Leonard (33 points) and Pascal Siakam (20 points), but the game was never really close after the second quarter as the Sixers pulled off the wire-to-wire win. Philly now leads the series 2-1, with Game 4 set for Sunday afternoon. Here are three takeaways from Game 3: Talent gap When Tobias Harris was traded to Philadelphia, it became pretty widely accepted that the Sixers had just assembled what was probably the second-most talented starting five in the league. There were questions about the depth and the fit, and perhaps those things will still pop up as this series continues. But right now, the Sixers are winning this series because, flat out, they have more talent. And talent has a way of making things fit. Yes, Kawhi Leonard is the best player in this series. But after that? You could argue that four of Philly's five starters are better than Toronto's second-best player, Pascal Siakam, and that is showing more than ever. A ton has been made about Marc Gasol and all the things he has brought to Toronto, but Embiid is just way better. Kyle Lowry is an All-Star, but right now, Ben Simmons is better. Siakam is going to be an All-Star soon, but Jimmy Butler is better. Danny Green is still good, but Harris is better. I picked Toronto to win the series, but I'd be lying if I said I was still confident in that. If they do, it'll be because they fit better and Leonard is potentially good enough to cancel out a lot of the Sixers' advantages. But man against man, the Sixers have better players. I did not give that enough attention in thinking about this series. This Joel Embiid changes everything Mark Jackson said on the TV broadcast that, barring injury, Embiid is going to be in the conversation with the greatest big men of all-time. Jeff Van Gundy went "pump your brakes" crazy, but really, is it that crazy? There was a time when Jackson said Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were the greatest shooting backcourt of all-time, and people thought he was nuts. He wasn't. See the thing is, if you wait until something is obvious to make a statement, then you're not really making any kind of a statement. Embiid is a complete monster, and he's the reason why the Sixers are now in control of this series. He looks healthy. Energetic. He's playing with such a balance of jump-shooting, posting and putting the ball on the floor. He went for 33 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks on 3-of-4 shooting from 3, and he did it all in 28 minutes. And now that you have defenders thinking about him sticking those 3-pointers, he does this: Embiid had a couple down games by his standards to start the series, but in Game 3 he was decisive. That was the key. When he shot the 3, he shot it with confidence and rhythm. When he put it on the floor, he just went. When he posted, he went quickly but not in a hurry (hat tip John Wooden). When Embiid is playing like this, on both ends, there are two certainties: The Raptors are in trouble, and Mark Jackson is right. The Butler did it Jimmy Butler was nowhere to be found in Game 1, and the Sixers lost. Since then he's put up 52 points, 20 rebounds and 14 assists over Games 2 and 3, both Sixers wins. Butler is so important because he's the main perimeter creator in the half-court, where Simmons' inability to shoot can really screw with spacing and pace. Butler is great in the two-man game with Embiid because he draws defenders in a way Simmons doesn't off the bounce, like here: He attacked in early offense: He flew around defensively: Butler is arguably the second-most important player for Philly behind Embiid. He gives them the shot creation they lack elsewhere against set defenses. When he's this good, Philly is a different team. Dirty plays There were two. First, in In the second quarter, Ben Simmons delivered a pretty obvious cheap shot into Kyle Lowry's groin area and managed to get away with it. As you'll see below, Lowry had boxed Simmons out deep under the basket, and once the shot was missed and play was moving to the other end, Simmons made his move. Lowry was incensed and made his case through the next possession, after Norman Powell had connected on a 3-pointer on the other end for the Raptors, but no call was made. ESPN brought its officiating expert, Steve Javie, on the broadcast, and he said too much time had passed for the officials to go back and assess a flagrant foul, which would have given Toronto two foul shots and possession. The league can go back and assess a flagrant after the fact, which would go on Simmons' total for the playoffs, but that doesn't do Toronto any good. The second play looked even worse, with Siakam pretty blatantly sticking his leg out and tripping Embiid. Siakam did not get away with this, as he received a flagrant-1, but you have to wonder if maybe the league will look a little deeper at this and consider a suspension. In fact, speaking of suspensions, that Simmons plays doesn't look all that much different from the one that got Draymond Green suspended from Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals, after Green took a shot at LeBron's groin area in Game 4. We'll see. Recap of live updates If you are unable to view the live application below, please click here. No. 2 Toronto Raptors vs. No. 3 Philadelphia 76ers How to watch Game 4<doc-sep>Joel Embiid was clearly less than 100 percent on Monday, scoring just 12 points in Game 2 as he struggled with what the Philadelphia 76ers called gastroenteritis and what he gleefully called something else. Even in his addled state, though, the 25-year-old big man came through when it counted, producing arguably the two biggest plays of the game to push Philly past the Toronto Raptors, even the best-of-seven set at 1-1, and steal home-court advantage in their second-round series. Under the bright lights and with the game in the balance, Embiid bossed up and made the plays that needed making. It was superstar shit, pure and simple, and it left you wondering how much damage he might do given two days off to get back to full strength before Thursday’s Game 3. The answer: a friggin’ bunch of damage. Lots and lots. Like, so much damage. Embiid sized up Marc Gasol—a 7-foot-1, 255-pound former Defensive Player of the Year who had guarded him as well as any player in the league before this series and in Game 1—and bulldozed him into the paint, finishing at the front of the rim or forcing fouls that sent him to the free throw line 13 times. He stepped confidently into shots from the perimeter, whether trailing the play in transition or popping to the 3-point line off a screen, knocking down three of his four long-range tries. He dominated the paint on defense, repeatedly turning back Toronto’s boldest drivers and making the more timid types think twice, and maybe three times, about whether to press their luck. He destroyed the Raptors, scoring 33 points on 9-for-18 shooting to go with 10 rebounds, five blocks, and three assists in just 28 minutes to pace the Sixers in a 116-95 rout that gave Philly a 2-1 lead over the favored Raptors. It’s Embiid’s second 30-10-5 game in these playoffs, making him one of only nine players since the NBA began recording blocks in the 1973-74 season with more than one such playoff performance on his résumé. Embiid is also the first player in 13 years to do it more than once in the same postseason. As it turns out, he knows the last guy to do it pretty well: Sixers GM Elton Brand achieved it in consecutive Western Conference semifinals games for the Los Angeles Clippers back in 2006. There’s a certain poetry in that. Brand was never better than that 2005-06 season, averaging 24.7 points, 10 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 2.5 blocks per game for a Clippers team that went from Everybody’s Favorite Fun Young Team to a real winner after importing bona fide veterans Sam Cassell and Cuttino Mobley. They won 10 more games that season, outclassed a 21-year-old Carmelo Anthony’s Nuggets in Round 1, and pushed the Seven Seconds or Less Suns to the limit in the conference semifinals before coming up short in Game 7. Brand was brilliant in that series; at age 26, it seemed he’d have plenty more opportunities to make deep playoff runs and compete for titles. But then a bunch of his teammates got injured, and then Brand himself suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon, and that was that. Brand’s only other trip past Round 1 as a rotation player would come on the 2011-12 Sixers that beat a top-seeded Bulls team broken by Derrick Rose’s devastating knee injury. It just never happened for him; that first real shot at postseason success wound up being Brand’s best, and his last. Maybe that’s the kind of thing that sticks with you as you maneuver through post-playing life. Maybe that’s why, after taking over the 76ers last September following the Bryan Colangelo episode, Brand went all in with November’s trade for All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler, and then doubled down with February’s deal for versatile forward Tobias Harris. Because when you have this Joel Embiid—a balletic battleship who can share the court with the best players in the world and still be the best player on it—you have to try to win the whole goddamn thing. You hang everything on the hope that the enormous, skilled, tough, brash, and brutalizing team of your dreams can coalesce in time to make a real run. On Thursday night, the Sixers were Brand’s vision board come to life. There was Embiid, the sun around which everything orbits. There was Ben Simmons, making Kawhi Leonard work for every inch of space while attacking the offensive glass, pushing the pace in transition, and dishing seven assists with only one turnover. There was Butler, carving up Toronto’s steps-slow bigs in the pick-and-roll and filling in every blank—22 points on 15 shots, nine rebounds, nine assists (ties a playoff career high), three steals, sneer to spare, a joy to watch. There was Harris, crashing the boards, making the extra pass, posting up the smaller Kyle Lowry, keeping Philly moving. There was JJ Redick, making the Raptors’ suddenly shaky defense pay for falling asleep or overpursuing, drilling three 3-pointers to keep Toronto at arm’s distance. Redick also provided a reminder of just how tenuous dominance can be. With just over nine minutes to go in the third quarter and the Sixers up by 14, Lowry stepped on Redick’s right foot in pursuit of a loose ball. The veteran sharpshooter came up limping, quickly called for a timeout and a substitution, and made his way right back to the locker room. For a breathless moment, you play out the possibilities. If Redick can’t go, then Brett Brown will have to lean even harder on James Ennis III, who’s been one of the Sixers’ few reliable reserves. Putting Ennis into the starting lineup would mean finding another body to soak up some backcourt minutes. Are Furkan Korkmaz or Jonathon Simmons fit for minutes in the Eastern Conference semifinals? Is rookie Zhaire Smith? None of those guys gives you a tenth of the shooting spark that Redick does. Man, what the hell are the Sixers going to do? And then Redick comes out of the locker room after the next timeout, and checks back in at the next stoppage: crisis averted. The lead’s down to eight by the end of the third quarter, thanks to Leonard’s ongoing shotmaking absurdity, but when he hits the bench at the beginning of the fourth for a breather, the beatdown is back on. (It feels like a lifetime ago that the Raptors looked like the deepest team in the NBA; now, with Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright, and C.J. Miles gone to Memphis in exchange for Gasol, and rotation reserves OG Anunoby and Jeremy Lin on the injured list, Toronto’s even more thin than the famously threadbare Sixers, and can’t seem to sit its star for even a few minutes without disaster striking.) An 11-0 run capped by a Butler dunk in transition puts Philly up 18 with 9:01 to go. From there, Embiid really starts having fun, pulverizing fools and dancing as he does it, throwing down windmill dunks and pretending to be an airplane. That fourth quarter was what destruction looks like, and the Raptors are going to have a very, very long two days to sit with it all before trying to get even on Sunday afternoon. They very well might. Leonard remained a holy terror in Game 3, pouring in another 33 points on 13-for-22 shooting, and looks like a threat to hang 50 no matter how tightly Philly contests him. (He did commit five turnovers against three assists, though, as the Sixers’ efforts to make him more of a playmaker continue to pay off.) Though he scored just six points after halftime, Pascal Siakam rediscovered some rhythm when Embiid wasn’t defending him; it’s possible that he, too, could break out in the most important game of the Raptors’ season. At this point, though, the Sixers seem capable of surviving even if both Leonard and Siakam put up crooked numbers. Their size, physicality, and determined defense have boxed in Lowry and Gasol, two players who prefer to make their presence felt in subtler ways, but whose impact on Thursday was so subtle as to be nonexistent. Danny Green finally made shots, but virtually nobody else did.<doc-sep>“I think for everybody that knows me, I need it. When I have fun, my game just changes. I’m always told that if I don’t smile during the game, I’m either having a bad game or I’m not into it.” Embiid in fanciful fun mode is always the factor that makes the 76ers the most entertaining and intriguing of the remaining conference contenders. He is also the definitive answer to the question of whether a traditional center can still be the dictator of yore in a contemporary N.B.A. ruled by 3-point marksmen of all shapes and sizes. Of course, Gasol’s hapless late lunge was made necessary because the 7-foot, 250-plus-pound Embiid also happens to possess a soft touch from deep. So what do you do with a guy who makes 3 of 4 from behind the 3-point line, whose footwork and agility are such that he can navigate the paint like a small forward but with the size and power to coerce 13 free throws, of which he made 12? “Dominant, from the beginning of the game to the end,” said Greg Monroe, Embiid’s 28-year-old backup. “He’s a special player, no doubt about it. When he plays like that, he changes the game.” In Toronto, in Games 1 and 2, Embiid was more wallflower than man in full bloom, shooting a combined 7 for 25 from the floor, frustrated by the Raptors’ defensive energy, while setting off additional speculation about the condition of his chronically achy knees.<doc-sep>
Joel Embiid is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, an imposing post player, a monstrous rebounder, and the NBA’s fourth-leading scorer in 2018-19. Embiid is a lot of things, but a rim roller is not one of them. In Game 3 against the Toronto Raptors, though, as the Philadelphia 76ers took a 2-1 series lead with an authoritative 116-95 win, Embiid used some new-found momentum in the pick-and-roll to help him return from two disappointing (albeit unhealthy) games to open the series. Embiid finished Game 3 with 33 points (9-of-18 shooting, with a 3-of-4 mark from 3 and 12-of-13 from the free throw line), 10 rebounds, three assists and five blocks in just 28 minutes. He was dominant all around. He looked more nimble defensively, blocked and deterred countless attempts from the Raptors to score inside, and he was more assertive on offense. In fact, to cap off his performance with some history, Embiid became the first player to ever record at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in under 30 minutes in a playoff game. Through the first two games of this series, Marc Gasol was able to slow down Embiid in the post with smart, physical defense. It’s what Gasol does best. His primary weakness, on the other hand, is defending in space and being forced to cover more ground when guarding pick-and-rolls. Even Greg Monroe found success with 10 points in Game 2 after a flurry of effective dives to the rim, prompting the need for Embiid to do more of the same. It's pretty crazy that this is where we're at with the Sixers' bench, but Greg Monroe was fairly solid in Game 2. His rolls to the rim helped. The Sixers need to keep attacking Gasol in the pick-and-roll pic.twitter.com/7voy2D0zxo — Tom West (@TomWestNBA) May 2, 2019 Of course, Embiid operated through some dribble hand-offs and post-ups as always, and got the best of Gasol within the first few minutes by bullying his way across the lane to drop in a layup. Nine of Embiid’s 18 field goal attempts came within the paint, but most of his misses were from settling for mid-range jumpers or getting caught on the block with slower post-ups. Brett Brown has wisely made a clear effort to shift Ben Simmons into more of an off-ball cutting/screening role this series (which always had to be the case with Kawhi Leonard as his defender), while increasing the team’s pick-and-roll usage, primarily led by Jimmy Butler. After using a pick-and-roll ball handler for just 13.1 possessions per game during the regular season (29th in the NBA), the Sixers have upped that number to 17.4 in the playoffs. Downhill dives to the rim are unleashing the speed advantage Embiid needed over Toronto’s bigs. Here, Butler brings two defenders with him as Serge Ibaka soft hedges. Once Butler has the full attention of Ibaka and the trailing Fred VanVleet, Butler drops the bounce pass to Embiid. By this point, it’s too late for Ibaka to contain the rumbling Embiid, who finishes with an easy floater: With Gasol soft hedging on this play, Butler easily pulls the Raptors’ center and Leonard with him at the elbow, yet again waiting for just the right moment to hit Embiid with the pocket pass. Gasol is unable to recover down the lane by this point and Kyle Lowry arrives late to tag Embiid’s roll (not to mention having little hope of doing anything once he got there anyway), so Embiid picks up an open layup and foul: Butler is a good enough playmaker to beat the Raptors in these situations. Especially when the Raptors are using soft hedging, the Sixers can exploit the lack of remaining rim protection inside. This dribble hand-off with JJ Redick worked to similar effect. With Butler set up way above the 3-point line and Tobias Harris in the weakside corner, the Sixers are boosting their spacing as much as possible (Leonard sags off Simmons from just inside the arc, but there’s still only so much he can do by himself as the last line of defense). Lowry has to fully commit to Redick receiving the hand-off and Gasol presses to prevent an open shot, which leaves Embiid in space to charge down the lane and draw a foul on Leonard: After ranking 30th in their usage of pick-and-roll roll men in each of the last two seasons, Embiid has hardly had a chance to develop this aspect of his game.