Joel Embiid had a phenomenal first half, as he scored 28 points on 10-of-12 shooting and made it look easy against Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson. The big guy began to reminisce about his 2023 MVP days as he got to work and helped the Sixers take the lead.
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However, a poor third quarter finished them off as the Knicks outscored Philadelphia 30-13. They held Embiid scoreless in the third and he finished with 10 in the second half on 3-of-9 shooting.
“As a team, we’re all going to focus on offense, but defensively, we just couldn’t stop,” Embiid said. “Playing against a set defense is always going to be harder than running in transition and getting an easy defense. So I think that was our biggest problem. Just not getting enough stops in the third. We did a better job in the fourth, but there was a lot to overcome.”
Embiid makes a good point. It’s a lot easier when Philly can come out and run, but it was a struggle in the third. The Knicks shot 54.2% from the field and were 4 of 9 from deep in the third. Philadelphia tried hard in the fourth, but it wasn’t enough.
Another big problem was the rebound. The Knicks won the rebounding battle 53-38 and the second-chance points battle 26-4.
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“The first two matchups we did a pretty good job against them,” Embiid added. “We just have to do a better job. I thought they weren’t necessarily the big guys. I thought their guards crashed the boards, so make sure you control our guys, especially on the perimeter, and get them away from them.”
To Embiid’s point, the Knicks got 10 rebounds from Robinson and six from Towns, but Josh Hart pulled down 13 rebounds and OG Anunoby grabbed seven, including a big putback slam late in the fourth quarter. Coach Nick Nurse echoed Embiid’s sentiments.
“Listen, I think that’s certainly a big concern right out of the game, right?” the nurse said. “I mean, it was a concern at halftime. Usually you have to use two against Robinson, right? And that gets a little dangerous, because you put two on him, and that leaves… it’s like a double team. Does it leave a player open? I think a lot of it, I mean, he got his share, but a lot of it came from the guards that came in from the corners and under the basket.”
The Sixers had to put two lengths on Robinson because he can dominate a game like that on the glass. However, it left other players open to making the plays they did for the Knicks. It’s an area of ​​the game that needs to be cleaned up in the future.
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“Once you put two on a big guy like that, we probably almost have to rotate to the next guy that comes in,” Nurse continued. “Usually there’s at least one player that’s not going and you have to use all five, right? You have to use all five and that gets a little difficult sometimes with someone contesting shots or something, but it’s certainly a concern after a game, but I think for the most part we’ve done a pretty decent job.”
The Sixers, for the most part, have been solid in the second-chance points department, but they weren’t on Saturday.
“The worst thing for me is usually when we have a game like this and we give up 19 tonight, but usually we give up 15 and get 17 ourselves, right?” The nurse finished. “So it’s like we were able to balance it out, and we just didn’t get anything on the other end tonight either. So certainly, it’s probably the determining factor in the game.”
The Sixers will look to bounce back when they face the Charlotte Hornets on Monday on the road.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Joel Embiid and Sixers react to struggles in tough home loss to Knicks.