J.B. Bickerstaff Sounds Off After Embiid Dominates Free Throw Line

Sixers center Joel Embiid has always taken pride in his ability to bait defenders into fouling him. While other players might avoid admitting that they visit the free-throw line too much as it might come off as a slight to their game, Embiid welcomes the narrative.

"When you talk about drawing fouls, a lot of people call it flopping and all that stuff but the way I say it is it's about being smarter than your opponent," said Embiid last season after a matchup against Boston. "You gotta have a high basketball IQ. I'm talking to the young guys, and they're like, 'How can we draw fouls? How can we get to the free-throw line?' and I'm like, 'You gotta be smart like as soon as you feel the contact, you gotta go through it, and that's how you get fouled."

Embiid's plan doesn't always work -- but when he's able to consistently get calls -- the Sixers center feasts at the free-throw line. Sunday night's game between the Sixers and the Cleveland Cavaliers happened to be one of those nights, and his co-star James Harden got in on the action as well.

In the first quarter, trips to the free-throw line were nearly equal among both teams. The Sixers attempted nine foul shots while the Cavaliers attempted eight. The second quarter is when everything changed.

Joel Embiid and James Harden got to the line three times each, totaling for 12 of Philadelphia's 14 free-throw attempts. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers had just three attempts throughout the quarter.

After a lopsided second quarter in terms of fouling, the visits to the free-throw line were pretty even throughout the rest of the evening. In the third quarter, the Sixers had just one more free throw attempt over the Cavaliers. In the fourth quarter, Cleveland attempted 12 free throws while the Sixers attempted ten.

As the Cavaliers were whistled nine more times than the Sixers on Sunday night, Cleveland head coach J.B. Bickerstaff voiced his frustration with the referees following the matchup as he felt the Cavs were competing with the referees as well as Philly.

Bickerstaff Sounds Off

"That game was taken from us," Bickerstaff said following the matchup. "We deserved to win it. The one thing you can't defend is the free-throw line, and that's absurd."

The Sixers collected 35 points from the charity stripe after hitting on 83-percent of their free throws. The Cavaliers, who knocked down 74-percent of their free throws, scored 23 points as a result of fouls.

While Bickerstaff didn't want to take anything away from Embiid and Harden, who accounted for 28 of the 35 points coming from the foul line, the Cavaliers head coach simply believed that his team didn't get consistency from the officiating.

"They're great players, and they understand how to play through the rules," Bickerstaff said regarding Harden and Embiid. "They know how to manipulate the rules. This is no knock or disrespect to those guys. But the game has to be consistent on both ends of the floor. We were searching for that consistency, and we never found it."

Bickerstaff's frustration is sort of warranted, considering the Cavaliers shot better from the field and from beyond the arc while turning the ball over fewer times than the Sixers. But calling out the officials won't change the final results of the game.

At the end of the matchup, the Sixers did what they needed to do to outscore the Cavaliers 112-108. And with that victory, Philadelphia is playoff-bound for the fifth-straight season.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.