The Joel Embiid-less Philadelphia 76ers trailed by as much as 43 points in a 129-95 road loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, lacking the benefit of having one of the most dominant centers in the game. Sixers head coach Brett Brown took this opportunity to make Embiid's case for Defensive Player of the Year once again, noting how much his teammates missed him on the less-lauded end of the ball.
“I said, and I’ll say it again. I think he’s the defensive player of the year,” Brown said, according to Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. “You feel him whether you look at the points in the paint, it’s 62-30 [in favor of Portland], whether you look at the rebounding margin. I think the guys that we had, we just struggled defending them.”
Embiid's absence revealed an important flaw for this team, they're pedestrian at best without their star big man, but downright horrendous when they failed to zone into a laser-focused defensive effort without Embiid. Something that became very apparent, as the entire starting lineup lacked that juice.
“We will figure out what’s going to happen tomorrow and move from there,” Brown said. “It’s not anything that we’re concerned about.”
Neither Brown nor recently-acquired star Jimmy Butler seemed very bothered about this loss, scratching it off as just one game. Yet the Sixers have gone from top-three hopefuls to clawing to keep their fourth seed in the East, as the Boston Celtics star to gain ground after a slow start.
Embiid, who missed the game with left knee soreness, will need to right this ship and show he has the potential of turning this team around if he really hopes to be mentioned along those worthy of the DPOY award.
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