Ultimately, though, Embiid owned the overall shortcomings of his team: “We should be 2-0. We’re the better team. We’re gonna keep fighting.”Correction: They’re going to start fighting.
Asked if he thought the Knicks wanted these games more than the Sixers, coach Nick Nurse snickered, and replied, “Absolutely not.”
That’s concerning. There are three possibilities here.
1: Nurse doesn’t know what he’s been watching, which is unlikely, since he’s one of the league’s better coaches.
2: Nurse doesn’t want to hurt his players’ feelings; unacceptable, since that plays directly to their softness.
3: Nurse is getting everything out of them that they have. Now down 2-0, that would be the worst news of all.
The Knicks’ best player, Jalen Brunson, is 16-for-55 in the series. He’s shooting 29% from the field. He’s missed 10 of his 12 three-pointers.
How do you overcome that? Heart. Taking charges, fighting for loose balls, hunting offensive rebounds, and defending every second of every possession like they’re in a $100 pickup game at the park and they’ve only got 25 bucks in their sock.
Heart, like Josh Hart, the most aptly named player in the NBA, who has made 8-of-15 three-pointers after shooting 31.0% in the regular season. Heart, like Donte DiVincenzo, who dropped 19 and made four 3′s Monday night.
Heart, like Embiid.
At times, you had to wonder if some of Embiid’s own teammates were joining in the Madison Square Garden chant, “Bleep Embiid! Bleep Embiid!”
This guy, two months removed from left knee surgery, in two road playoff games, has scored 63 points and grabbed 19 rebounds in 75 minutes. He can’t do much more.
Heart, like Tyrese Maxey, who scored 33 when healthy in Game 1 and 35 while sick in Game 2. He, too, is absolved, despite his two turnovers in the last two minutes; he scored 15 in the fourth quarter while everybody else was either out of answers or out of gas.
Those two played hard. They wanted to win. So did Kyle Lowry, who’s 38 years old, and is averaging 35 minutes, which is 20 minutes too many at this point.
The rest?
Kelly Oubre Jr. has 14 points in the series. Nico Batum, nine. Buddy Hield, two. Tobias Harris, 17, and they’ve been barely noticeable.
Harris called out the Sixers two years ago after they collapsed against hard-nosed Heat. He said then that the team needed to get tougher. He was their best player in that series. Now?
“I just think we need to get a win,” Harris said. “I’m not really focused on comments I said [two years ago].”
“I thought we played tough as hell,” Maxey said. “Everybody played tough tonight.”
From his perspective, you couldn’t blame him. He’s not wrong. There’s tough, and then there’s Knicks tough, and nobody suffered more than Maxey.
Maxey got punked at the end of the game on the inbounds play, but that wasn’t as embarrassing as what happened earlier in the fourth quarter. With 8:18 to play Miles “Deuce” McBride and Maxey grabbed Bojan Bogdanovic’s missed three-point shot at the same time. McBride twisted the ball from Maxey’s grasp, tossed Maxey to the floor, and deposited a layup for a 87-80 lead.
It was like that all Monday night. All Saturday night. It will be like that all Thursday night, too, when the series moves to Philadelphia.
The Knicks play like they are rabid. Like they are furious. Like they are cornered. And that’s why they’re favored.
“No one’s gonna feel sorry for us,” Harris said.
Bull’s-eye, big guy.
No one does.