Joel Embiid is back in the post and feasting on the Celtics

BOSTON — Last offseason, coming off yet another disappointing playoff performance, Joel Embiid decided to tweak his game. 

During the Philadelphia 76ers’ second-round loss to the Miami Heat, he’d averaged only 19.8 points per game on 42.6% shooting. He’d allowed the Heat, through a series of aggressive fronts and denials combined with aggressive on-ball pressure, to take him out of the series. This wasn’t an outlier, either. His numbers often plummeted in the playoffs. 

So Embiid decided the post would no longer be his office. It was too easy for him to be doubled there, and too hard to get him the ball. Instead, he’d migrate out to the elbows. There, he could get the ball easily and then survey the entire court, making it dangerous to send extra defenders. 

"Our biggest thing is always figuring out ways for him to get as many easy baskets as he can come playoff time," his trainer Drew Hanlen said in an interview in September.   

In the 2021-22 season, Embiid posted up 9.8 times per game, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. This year, that number fell to 6.5. Embiid received the ball at the elbows 8.8 times per game, nearly double his mark from last season, according to Second Spectrum's tracking. 

The move made Embiid basically unguardable. He put together the best offensive season of his career — a league-leading 33.1 points per game on a career-best 54.8% shooting — and finally took home the MVP he’d been chasing for two years. 

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But a funny thing has happened during the Sixers’ current second-round matchup with the Boston Celtics: Embiid has moved back into his old office. He posted up 13 times in Game 4, according to Second Spectrum, and finished with 34 points in a series-tying overtime win. On Tuesday, in the Sixers’ stunning 115-103 Game 5 romp of the Celtics in Boston — a victory that has the Sixers just one win away from making the conference finals for the first time since 2001 — he posted up 12 times and finished the evening with 33 points. 

"The way they’re guarding, when they come in, there's no space to really drive and operate," Embiid said after the win when asked about the uptick in post touches. "And then you know, they crowd me to make sure I don't get a jump shot."

Embiid wasn’t as efficient as he would have liked to be on Tuesday — he shot just 10-for-23 — but he did shoot 12 free-throws. A bunch of those trips came off of his work down on the block, where the Celtics seemed content to let him operate one-on-one. 

Of course, what makes Embiid great is that he’s able to punish opponents from so many spots. Take away one thing, and he’ll move to the next. 

For example, Embiid struggled when he tried attacking Celtics big man Al Horford one-on-one from the elbow in Game 4, even getting his shot swatted three times. So in Game 5, the Sixers tried something different, especially early on: They went back to their bread-and-butter, the Embiid-James Harden pick-and-roll. This forced the 36-year-old Horford to guard in space, an area where he now struggles. With the Celtics hesitant to help off some of the Sixers’ shooters, Embiid was able to waltz into easy looks off Harden dishes. 

"This game they played us a little different," Harden said after the win. "They were kind of clogging the paint to where, you know, Joel had his free-throw jump shot. 

"So we've literally seen every defense, from them switching to their bigs on a deep drop, to their bigs in a closer drop, so, it's a matter of just us seeing what they're doing, what they're trying to do and then us [countering]." 

That is the secret, and it’s why Embiid is on the brink of reaching the conference finals for the first time in his career. There’s no single defense to throw at him, no magic scheme to take him out of his rhythm. He can attack one-on-one from the blocks or the elbows. Harden’s presence means he now has a dance-partner who can send defenses into rotation on pick-and-rolls. The shooting of Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris and De'Anthony Melton, and the threat of P.J. Tucker crashing the glass, mean defenses can’t sell out on Embiid, which he said is the key to his success in the post. 

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"I think we've been doing a good job of spacing," Embiid said Tuesday. 

The Celtics will likely be more aggressive with their traps on Embiid in Thursday's Game 6 in Philadelphia. He’s better than he used to be at anticipating double-teams and reading the floor, but the Celtics won’t want to go down with Embiid beating them. They’ll likely force some of the Sixers’ role players to bury shots. 

But Embiid has also reached a stage where it might not matter what the game plan is, where the only thing a defense can do is force him to move spots. His ability to attack the Celtics in multiple ways from multiple spots is what has them reeling and on the ropes. 

"Doesn't matter if it's the post, the nail or anywhere on the floor," he said after Game 5. "Just give me the ball I have a pretty good chance of scoring and creating for my teammates."

Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and 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.