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* Tonight on ESPN: Game 6, Raptors vs. Sixers (8 ET)
In the two most important games of the Philadelphia 76ers season to date, their best player has been well below 100%. And it's probably more frustrating whether it's an illness rather than a recurring knee problem, that's Joel Embiid's main problem.
Embiid scored only 24 points, with more turnovers (10) than scored on the field (eight), the Sixers having lost the fourth and fifth games of their semifinal series of the Conference of the East against the Toronto Raptors. The Sixers season is now scheduled as they host the sixth match, with no clear indication that they will have a full power Embiid.
"This is not ideal," said Brett Brown, coach of the Sixers, about Embiid's illness.
Although Embiid and Ben Simmons are only 25 and 22, respectively, the Sixers are launching it this season. They traded against Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris, who will have the choice to go free agency this summer. Their new starting team was dominant, but she played only 19 games together. It could be their former team's departure after Thursday due to a microorganism that would have entered the body of Embiid.
Match 6 will be the first in which one or the other team will face an elimination. For the Sixers, the issues go beyond Embiid's health. Thursday night will be a test of cohesion, tenacity and purchase.
The excuses do not go very far at this time of the year. The Sixers knew the risks when they they exchanged two players in rotation to Minnesota for Butler and when they sent two first-round picks and Landry Shamet to the Clippers for Harris. When the playoffs arrive, a player (like Kawhi Leonard) can get very hot, another player (Harris) can get cold, another (Embiid) can get sick or get hurt, and a regular season star having a defect fatal in his game (Simmons) can be neutralized.
Of course, the Sixers season is not over. There are just a few games, the Raptors looked like a more imperfect team with cold shooters. The Sixers won the second game in Toronto with Embiid Limited because of a stomach problem. The Raptors may have found themselves on Tuesday – "We have so much confidence right now," said Serge Ibaka after the fifth match. But every game in this series was very different from the other four.
Did the Sixers have enough time together to believe each other with their season at stake? Are players as complete as the front office? The Sixers look great when everything is clicked (see part 3), but can they play from behind?
Brown thinks they're good at this.
"For a team that has not been together for so long," he said Wednesday, "there is resilience, there is cohesion that contradicts what the calendar says we spent together . "
The fifth match was an opportunity for the Sixers to show some of that resilience. But after Toronto took the lead late in the first quarter, Philadelphia did not react.
The Sixers will be home Thursday and will focus on the first quarter of an hour to see what kind of fight they have (and if the Raptors can face a possible storm). There has been a constant in the five games of this series: the winner of the first quarter has won all five victories.
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