The most revealing aspect of Joel Embiid’s performance Tuesday night against the Celtics wasn’t the 52 points he scored or the 13 rebounds he grabbed but the truth he told.
The 76ers had needed every one of those points and boards, every one of Embiid’s six assists, every bit of his top-to-bottom excellence, just to hang on against Boston, 103-101. They needed Embiid’s most persuasive case that he should be the NBA’s Most Valuable Player just to avoid a soul-crushing collapse in the game’s closing seconds, just to keep themselves from going 0-4 this season against the opponent they’re likely to face in the playoffs.
They needed to win to shake off a bad loss in Milwaukee to the Bucks two nights earlier and to show that they actually could beat the rival that has bedeviled them for the better part of six years now. And afterward, only Embiid was honest enough to admit what was obvious: This one mattered more, and even in winning it, the Sixers hadn’t given anyone much reason to think that a matchup against the Celtics would end in anything other than another springtime disappointment.
