Winning Dirty

The Sixers got back in the series thanks to a performance from Joel Embiid that was as disgraceful as it was brilliant.

Good Morning. Joel Embiid can go kick rocks.

Game 3: Knicks 114, Sixers 125

In a New York minute…

The airtight series started out even closer in Game 3, with neither team going ahead by more than five points until midway through the third quarter. Long before we got there though, this game nearly went off the rails when Joel Embiid let his frustrations get the best of him, engaging in multiple non-basketball acts that almost (and almost certainly should have) got him ejected. He didn’t, and after halftime, imposed his will with 18 third quarter points on nearly perfect shooting. Philly’s offense was on fire as a whole, but New York never went away and kept things interesting until the final minute.

Three Things

One: With 6:37 remaining in the first quarter, Joel Embiid comes down the court for an offensive possession and, without Isaiah Hartenstein initiating any contact whatsoever, Embiid knees Hartenstein in the groin.

The officials reviewed the plays and deemed it a common offensive foul, and not a flagrant.

Two: Just over two minutes later, Tobias Harris tries to front OG Anunoby, but Josh Hart successfully delivers the pass over the top of Harris’ arms, forcing Joel Embiid to help. OG (legally) bumps Embiid, who falls down, which prompted Harris to come back onto Anunoby, leaving Mitchell Robinson open for the dump pass under the hoop.

Embiid, still on the ground, pulls Robinson down by the right leg.

After a review by the officially, the foul is upgraded to a flagrant one, but not a flagrant two, which would have been appropriate if the officials deemed the play to be not only unnecessary, but excessive.

Three: Head official Zach Zarba is questioned about the decision to issue a flagrant one and not a flagrant two after the game, and gives no commentary whatsoever on why the contact was not deemed excessive, only saying that it did not rise to that level. Pool reporter Keith Pompey (notably, of the Philadelphia Inquirer) did not ask a single follow up question, either about why the contact was not deemed excessive or why the foul committed against Hartenstein was not deemed a flagrant.

And for good measure, four: Joel Embiid’s partially transcribed response when asked about the physical nature of the game (click here to hear the whole thing):

Among other statements, Embiid said that while he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he had to protect himself, and that specifically on the Robinson play, he was “trying to make sure he doesn’t land on me.” He also said that he had flashbacks to when Jonathan Kuminga landed on his knee in January and ultimately forced him to miss two months.

It is highly unfortunate that this - utter nonsense, all of it - is what we have to sit here and talk about today after what should have been a classic game between excellent teams, but Joel Embiid took it upon himself to make that a reality.

It is the action of Joel Embiid and nobody else besides Embiid - not Robinson, not Kuminga, not Jesus Christ himself - that has overshadowed his own spectacular performance in Game 3, and required us to focus on why he should have never been allowed to stay in this game to begin with.

If the Hartenstein play is called a flagrant one, as it should have been, and then the foul on Mitch occurred, Embiid would have been tossed.

If the foul on Mitch had been called a flagrant two - the foul where Embiid claimed he was trying to protect himself after he did this…

…Embiid would have been tossed.

Embiid, of course, is as full of shit as a constipated sumo wrestler. This video caught him complaining to the ref about a foul he thought Robinson committed on him mere seconds before he pulled Mitch down to the ground. Like a petulant child who was told he couldn’t have a second bowl of ice cream after dinner, Embiid lost his cool, and in the process, committed an act that is far more befitting of an MMA ring than a basketball court.

And nothing was done about it.

Now, after Mitch got up with a limp and eventually had to leave a game he valiantly tried to stay in before re-aggravating the injury, the man Embiid pulled down to the ground is in a walking boot, or at least he was when he left the arena last night. Mere days after Robinson gave Embiid everything he could handle in Game 1, there’s a significant question as to his availability in the rest of this series.

Mission accomplished, Joel. You did it. What a tough guy you are after all.

Yes, after Embiid stayed in the game, he put on one of the great shooting displays of his career in the third quarter and eventually got to 50 points for the night, but only with the assistance of 21 trips to the line - more than the entire Knick team. His foul drawing has become as big a part of his arsenal as his incredible, undeniable skill at his size. That is fine, and is allowed within the rules of the game. The Knicks know it is something they have to deal with, and to their credit, they are not complaining.

But even putting aside the blatant attempts to injure multiple players, in no way, shape or form is this a fair fight. As the game started to turn in the beginning of the third quarter, the refs repeatedly failed to call fouls on the Sixers for contact that certainly seemed more excessive than anything New York was doing on the other end of the court.

Such is life when the home team is down 0-2, I suppose.

This is where we’re at three games into this series, a classic matchup that has morphed into something far uglier going into Game 4.

The Knicks, to their credit, didn’t let any of this phase them, hanging around in this game against all odds with yet another high level display of two-way basketball. Now that Jalen Brunson has gotten going, it is hard to ask for more than they have given.

Maybe that will be enough to take the series and maybe it won’t.

But at least let it be a fair fight.

Last night, it was anything but.