PHILADELPHIA — Joel Embiid showed out for the home crowd in the Philadelphia 76ers' first game at the Wells Fargo Center in the 2023-24 season. He had a monstrous performance in the win against the Portland Trail Blazers, tallying 35 points on 12-22 shooting, 15 rebounds, seven assists, six blocks and two steals.

Embiid hit his jumpers, even from beyond the arc. He commanded the boards on both ends. He drove into the lane with gusto, made plays for his teammates, defended with intensity, took care of business at the free-throw line, limited his turnovers to just three and put the Sixers in a spot to cruise to victory in just under 30 minutes of playing time.

With every cylinder firing for Embiid, what was it that head coach Nick Nurse liked the most about his performance? Before answering that question he got after the game, he clarified something regarding Embiid's status.

“Yeah, I mean, I think that the questionable thing…it's probably gonna always be like that on a back-to-back just to make sure where we're at and all that stuff,” Nurse said, referring to Embiid being listed as questionable due to rest for the Sixers' third game in a third different location in four days.

The Sixers' head coach then said that Embiid “was super dominating. I think that all of it's really impressive but the part I'm loving is he is protecting that rim and he's got people wondering what's gonna happen. He's taking swings at [shots], he is getting a lot of 'em. He's probably getting credit for all the ones that they're marking him down for, all those kinds of things…That's where defense kind of starts. If you can protect the rim really well, you're gonna have a good chance of having a good defense.”

Before the season, Nurse said that he wants Embiid to focus more on protecting the rim than he has before. A guy that big should be prioritized with making his presence felt in the paint and making it harder for opponents to score in the area of the court where shooting is most efficient. Embiid has routinely been one of the best shot blockers and interior defenders in basketball. Nurse wants to see him do it even more.

The Sixers tallied 17 blocks against the Blazers, more than they had in their first two games combined (11). They haven’t tallied 17 blocks in one game since 1993. Patrick Beverley had three while Tobias Harris and P.J. Tucker each had a pair. Embiid said after the win that they still have room to grow on that end of the floor, as evidenced by the way they tightened up in their win over Portland and their win the day prior against the Toronto Raptors.

“It's funny, I still don't think we're good enough defensively,” Embiid said. “I think we can be way better than what we've shown. You know, [getting] blocks is good but you still gotta get stops. Tonight we did a better job, other than the second quarter, we did a better job overall, the whole game. Yesterday, we had our spurts. Obviously, they started the game pretty hot from three and then we settled down and we got some stops.”