Nothing to be Happy About: Joel Embiid Not Impressed With Sixers Win Over Pistons

Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers knew they would have growing pains at the start of the year. While the team is relatively similar to last year's squad, the Sixers are missing a key member of the roster as Ben Simmons continues to sit out due to personal reasons.

Heading into Thursday night's matchup against the Detroit Pistons, the Sixers had two wins and two losses. Both victories came against teams that aren't expected to make the playoffs when the regular season is all said and done. Meanwhile, the two losses came against playoff-ready organizations.

The Pistons didn't have a single win on their record going into Thursday's matchup. For a team like the Sixers that just notched the first seed in the Eastern Conference last year, Thursday's game should've been a walk in the park.

But Detroit didn't let the Sixers walk all over them. Detroit kept the game within single digits through the first half and never allowed Philly to gain over a nine-point lead. At halftime, the Sixers led by six. While it seemed the Sixers were starting to pull away in the third quarter as they outscored Detroit 27-21, the Pistons were right back in it as they nailed 63-percent of their three-point shots in the final quarter.

The Sixers held onto their lead and picked up a 110-102 victory over Detroit. After the game, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers was relieved that his team managed to come out on top with a win after Detroit took ten more shots and 12 more threes than Philly. Joel Embiid, on the other hand, wasn't exactly thrilled with the result of the matchup despite his team coming out on top and issuing the Pistons their fourth-straight loss.

"We need to get way better," Embiid said after the matchup. "No disrespect to Detroit, but they haven't won a game, so we can't be happy about our performance tonight. There's nothing to be happy about, but as a team, we just played New York. It was a different energy level. They were tougher than us, more physical, and they got what they wanted. We couldn't guard our own man."

Offensively, the Sixers shot better than the Pistons. However, they committed seven more turnovers. And in Embiid's eyes, it was the defensive side of the ball where the Sixers struggled and almost handed the game over to the Pistons. 

"We need to be way better defensively than we have been," Embiid explained. "We gotta guard our own man. Right now, we haven't been able to do so, and it creates a lot of rotations, and teams are making a lot of threes. Like you saw tonight when they made that run. It was because we can't guard our own man, and they just penetrated, and that causes a lot of help and now you gotta rotate all over the place."

Fortunately, the Sixers came out of Thursday's thriller with a victory. While they can let out a sigh of relief, for the time being, the team needs to regroup and get ready for a big test on Saturday as they are set to face the Atlanta Hawks. 

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