Pascal Siakam, Raptors Satisfied With Defense vs. Joel Embiid
Playing the Philadelphia 76ers several times every season and even having multiple playoff series against each other, Nick Nurse and the Toronto Raptors know precisely how they want to defend Sixers star Joel Embiid every time they face him.
Many teams across the NBA have struggled to counter Joel Embiid’s offensive attack as he’s established himself as one of the league’s most dominant bigs. As for the Raptors, they’ve found success against Embiid over the years.
When the Sixers paid a visit to the Raptors on Wednesday night, Embiid was unsurprisingly the Raptors’ focal point on defense. While Embiid had a moderately successful night, as he scored 31 points in 37 minutes, Nick Nurse was still satisfied with his team’s defensive execution.
“I was super happy with the defense,” said Nurse. “I thought the defense was really, really good. I know sometimes the numbers [don’t show it]. There were some stretches there where they kind of got them in clumps, bang bang bang, bang bang bang. But there were also a bunch of stretches where there were five or six consecutive stops in a row. It looked like we had them a little bit, getting done what we wanted to get done. I think it was a really good defensive effort.”
Embiid took care of the ball by only turning it over twice, which is a step in the right direction, as he’s struggled with turnovers early on in the season so far. Regardless if he had a solid night on the box score, the Raptors felt their defensive game plan was successful.
“Embiid still scored 31, and he was probably the focus of the defense,” said Raptors star Pascal Siakam. “We got to get better at that there, but I think we made it tough. It wasn’t just super easy, it doesn’t seem like we made it tough, but we made him kick the ball out a couple of times, which is what we want to do.”
“We finished most of the possessions, right?” Said Nurse. “They would make the right kick out; we’d be there. They would make the next one; we’d be there. They make the next one; we’d be there. The numbers maybe don’t show that we gave those guys all the attention we did, but I think it had us pretty active.”
The Raptors won the turnover battle on Wednesday night 13-9. As the Sixers struggled with transition defense, the Raptors generated 21 points off the 13 turnovers the Sixers gave up. The Sixers still played a solid offensive game on Wednesday as they shot 50 percent from the floor and 44 percent from deep, but the Raptors remained happy with how they played. Therefore, they’ll come in with a similar strategy for the second outing on Friday night.
“We’re gonna watch the film and get better,” Siakam finished. “We’ll take the win, but at the same time, we’re not satisfied. We know a team like that, they’re gonna come back next game and make adjustments. We gotta be ready for that.”
The Raptors defeated the Sixers 119-109 on Wednesday. Now, the two teams will go at it for a rematch on Friday night.
Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.
