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Tim BontempsESPN
Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid said he believed Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James should have been rated a flagrant foul 2 and sent off for the Philadelphia victory by 107-106 about the current champions Wednesday night.
“Well, first of all, I mean look at it, it’s a very dangerous play,” Embiid said of James ’foul, which came at 5:44 of the third quarter. “I guarantee you that if it were me, I would probably have been kicked out of the match, something that has happened in the past with which I have received blatant fouls for real.”
While Embiid was annoyed that James was only given a flagrant 1, which allowed him to stay in the game, he was also annoyed that, 68 seconds later, he was called a flagrant 1 to get an elbow to Anthony Davis. that Embiid did not believe he deserved this punishment.
“When you compare that to what I got, I thought I didn’t really hit him, I didn’t elbow him,” said Embiid, who had 28 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocked shots in 38 minutes. “Maybe I should have touched him. But I don’t think he deserved the blatant, if you compare them.
“They’re tough plays, and I just thought, you know, it should have been a blatant 2.”
For his part, Sixers coach Doc Rivers, a product of a different era of the sport who had more physical play than today, said he did not believe that either play should have been ‘to have asked for any flagrant.
His only concern at this point was that Embiid, who fell a few feet on his back and writhed on the ground in pain, was fine after falling. And while Embiid didn’t move as well after the play, he managed to stay in the game and help the Sixers win.
“First of all, LeBron is not a dirty player,” Rivers said. “It was just a physical play and they had to call the blatant, I guess.
“You know, all the blatants tonight … you can get an blatant easy these days. But that fall was tough and there was some concern. The fact that Joel continued, of course it wasn’t the same after of that, in terms of their movement. And we knew that and we used it a lot to do that. “
Embiid, who has been on the injury report recently with a back pain that has kept him out of one or two games, said he won’t know how to respond until after waking up in the morning, but that he feel limiting it during the game.
He said part of the collapse of Philadelphia along the stretch, which saw the Lakers score 13 points in a row to erase the Sixers ’12-point lead with three minutes to go and a 106-105 lead when 11.2 seconds were left, it was partly due to his back limitation his movement.
“I’m on my own,” Embiid said of the final Philadelphia game slide. “I missed a couple of shots. I just didn’t have my legs. Not because I was tired, which I didn’t, but my back didn’t allow me to master the way I was doing in the fourth quarter. I missed a couple of shots, we committed a couple of mistakes on defense, they made a few 3s, and so they went up 1. “
But just as it seemed that ongoing questions about the Sixers and their inability to close the stretch would haunt Philadelphia once again, the Sixers were rescued by a magnificent shot from Tobias Harris, who confidently took a pass, went dribble at the elbow against Lakers goalie Alex Caruso and stood up to bury what turned out to be the winning jumper with 3.0 seconds left.
“I’m a person who visualizes myself in those places, so when the opportunity came … it’s a shot, I work over and over again, but right now I just have enough confidence to let it go and I’m well with the result.
“Tonight, it went well.”
It was a shot that also allowed the Sixers to laugh at the weak end of the game, a stretch that almost ruined what had been an incredibly impressive performance by the hosts for the first 45 minutes against the current NBA champions. according to Harris. as a measuring stick given to the opponent.
“I would say a little bit of both,” said Harris, who finished with 22 points, when asked if he would focus more on being happy that he got the match winner or that he was frustrated by the careless play of Late Philadelphia. “I would say there’s always growth in everything. So tonight’s win is a big win for us against a great team, but at the same time we know we could be better, especially in the fourth quarter. “.