After putting pressure on the officials with comments about the whistles in Game 1, Raptors head coach Nick Nurse got back on his soapbox during his Game 2 pregame session. He accused Joel Embiid and his teammates of throwing elbows, using an open-hand slap, and of being allowed to play in a way his team could not.
In the dying moments of a comfortable Game 2 victory for Philadelphia, Embiid stood on the sideline near Nick Nurse and sparred with Toronto's head coach. The contents of that conversation?
"He's a great coach obviously, I got [respect] for what he's been able to accomplish and I've always been a big fan. But I told him, respectfully, to stop bitching about calls," Embiid said. "Because I saw what he said last game."
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"If you're going to triple-team somebody all game, they're bound to get to the free-throw line. If you're going to push them off and try to hold them off and all of that stuff, they're bound to get to the free-throw line. So I feel like every foul was legit, and probably should have been more, honestly."
To the big man's point, the Raptors did not exactly try to play foul-free basketball to start the game. Embiid and Raptors forward OG Anunoby got into a scuffle under Philadelphia's basket less than 90 seconds into the game, and countryman Pascal Siakam sent Embiid tumbling to the ground a minute and change later, Embiid's feet going out from under him with Siakam leaping high in the air to contest. The message had been sent — the Raptors were not about the get bulldozed over two straight games.
Unfortunately for the Raptors, they lacked an important ingredient to win that battle of brawn. Critically, they were short the most imposing guy on the floor, the figure of frustration for Nurse. The Raptors are learning what a lot of people figure out as early as elementary school. When you end up in a fight, it helps to have the biggest guy on your side.
Embiid has been building up to this version of himself across years of work, skill development and fitness building and attention to detail all combining to mold the guy you see in front of you. Many of Embiid's early trips to the line stemmed from his willingness to run the floor, not his dominance on the block, the big man running rim to rim and being rewarded for the effort.
"He's the most dominant player in the league to me, physically. And that's what we told him, be who you are. Be dominant. Be physical," Doc Rivers said after the game. "I thought the first three minutes, they spent time trying to hit him, delivered blows to him. And I was like, no Jo, you be the dominant guy. I think he's been that. I loved how he ran down the middle of the floor into the paint, rim runs, that's good for us. And we need that more."
In one form or another, Embiid puts pressure on the officials. Some nights, it's through his manipulation of a defender's greed, using rip-throughs and feints (and a bit of salesmanship) to put himself at the line. Other nights, teams can't help but foul him, their smaller players hanging off of him as he tears apart their best-laid plans.
Embiid needs both sides of that coin in order to be the best version of himself. The mental side of being a star player is arguably the toughest hill to climb in order to lead a team to a championship, the difference between a bunch of guys with apex skills and competitive fire to spare. He has consistently earned high marks for how quickly he can pick up a new skill, duplicating pieces of the greats along his way to MVP contention.
It is only with experience, though, that Embiid has become more familiar with the game within the game, and the games played outside of the game. If he did not show that with how he spoke about the Ben Simmons situation from late October through mid-February, he is doing it now in mid-April, telling reporters that he understands what drives Nurse to advocate for a fairer shake.
"I feel like [other coaches] have self-awareness. When they say this type of stuff, it's just for, whether the referees to not call it anymore or just to also motivate their guys to go out there and play better. And hope to really put that in the referee's heads to not call it," Embiid said. "But when the fouls are as obvious as they were tonight, I mean they put me on the floor a few times. And to me, this is where it gets interesting to me."
"I'm like, well cool, I'm going to come back with more power, I think that's part of the reason I got a few offensive fouls tonight too. Because I was like well, if you're going to be physical, I'm going to come back with more power and make you foul me and make it more obvious if the refs don't want to call it. I think it's all about having self-awareness, I think [other coaches] just do it because they have to but they don't actually believe it. If you watch the clips, every single foul is a foul."
There are lot of Canadians (and some neutral observers, to be fair) who might take issue with that assessment. But on the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of instances where aggressive contact on Embiid doesn't get called, whether they're outright missed or because officials do not inherently want to be the center of attention in a game. Sometimes, people within the Sixers have noted, a string of early whistles can ultimately hurt Embiid, the officials reluctant to put numerous guys in foul trouble.
With the series headed to Toronto for two games north of the border, it's not unreasonable to expect the Raptors to get a little bit of home cooking. The Sixers will spend more of their time worrying about the Raptors' role players who you'd assume will get a boost from playing in front of their home fans. But it's natural to wonder whether all the chatter about the officials will skew results over the next two. And that's no critique of the officials who draw this unenviable assignment — it's only natural to second guess yourself and your colleagues when your job has been turned into a continental talking point.
On this front, Embiid's promise is that he is going to respond to the terms of engagement, no more and no less. Whether the politicking continues, whether he has to get in more back-and-forth debates with the opposing head coach, he is aware of the task in front of him.
"You listen to everything that was said after the game, referees and the league, they're the same way. They're going to come in and the next game they're going to let stuff go, they're not going to call soft fouls. So in that case, you got to be more aggressive," Embiid said Monday. "You got to go to the rim with more power, you got to jump over people, you got to try to finish through contact because that's an adjustment.
"I've been doing this for quite a while to know that's usually the adjustment, and in that case, that's where I become more physical."
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