‘That’s why he’s the MVP’: Sixers’ James Harden gets out of the way, trusts Joel Embiid in clutch
For Joel Embiids teammates, getting the ball to their cornerstone big man and then getting out of the way has generally been a good idea.
On Friday night, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers was grateful that James Harden intuitively took that approach.
Hardens instincts set Embiid up for a game-winning fadeaway jumper that completed a wild comeback win over the Trail Blazers at Wells Fargo Center.
Joel made a great shot, Rivers said, but James Harden made an amazing read because it was going to be a fake handoff to James … Jo was going to (either) go or give it to James. But Jo caught it deeper than we thought he could catch it, and James cut.
That was such a great read. Im telling you, theres 10 people that could see that instead of 99.9 percent of the league that wouldve come anyway, brought their guy and crowded it. … He wont get credit for it other than what Im doing, but it was a hell of a read. That was why (Embiid) had space.
Harden noted hes not robotic out there and called the play basketball common sense.
Just not run to the ball, Harden said with a chuckle of his read. Give Joel as much space as he needs to create the shot. Most likely, if he got a shot up, it was going in. I just tried to give him space and he created a shot and he made it.
After a 39-point night on 13-for-20 shooting, Embiid leads the NBA with 33.4 points per game. Hes posted a career-high 130.2 points per 100 shots, according to Cleaning the Glass, and a career-best 64.8 true shooting percentage. Much like with Harden during his run of three straight scoring titles from the 2017-18 through 19-20 seasons, anything resembling a 1-on-1 situation looks very favorable for Embiid.
Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Harden has averaged 21.9 points and a league-leading 10.8 assists.
Something that he works on every day, Harden said of Embiids game-winner. Thats why hes the MVP of the league.
Since they fell to 12-12 on Dec. 5 with a loss to the Rockets in double overtime, the Sixerss 74.4 winning percentage (32-11) is No. 1 in the NBA and their offensive rating (119.6) is No. 2 behind the Kings. Its difficult to believe that anyone during that stretch has been decisively better than Embiid, a back-to-back MVP runner-up.
Embiid perhaps slid a point about this years MVP race into an answer about the Sixers second-half defense.
I think a couple of plays down the stretch we went to one through five, just switching everything, he said. The game plan was really to trap (Damian Lillard) the whole game, and they hurt us a lot with that. Once we started going one through five I think Im a pretty good defender and defense matters. So I thought as a team, we did a good job.
Embiid is indeed an elite defensive player. And though the Sixers team defense has often looked porous Portland scored 71 first-half points, including 19 apiece for Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant theyve regularly accessed a much higher level late in games. In terms of defensive rating, the Sixers rank 15th in the first quarter, 14th in the second, 20th in the third, and third in the final period, per NBA.com/Stats. The teams defensive rating in the clutch is 93.2. Thats tied for first with two-time MVP Nikola Jokics Nuggets.
Putting all that aside, the Sixers have opened March 5-1 and Embiids teammates rightly feel like theyre playing with an MVP.
Joel just being Joel, Georges Niang said.
