Brett Brown Discusses Joel Embiid's Mentality After Game 1 vs. Celtics

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid was quite hard on himself after the loss against the Celtics on Monday. Was he too critical, though? Brett Brown recently weighed in.

Ever since last year's Game 7 loss against the Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid has been anticipating the 2020 NBA Playoffs. Losing dramatically, put a chip on Embiid's shoulder. And this season, the Sixers center vowed to get into the postseason healthy, in shape and motivated to win.

So far, Embiid and the Sixers are off to a rough start. On Monday, they faced the Boston Celtics for Game 1 of the first round, and Philly failed to come out on top with a win. Two blatant issues factored into the Sixers' inability to win against Boston. The first was turnovers. The second issue was a lack of Embiid offensively in the second half.

You could point the blame to a handful of players for the Sixers' issues -- but as a superstar team leader, Joel Embiid is willing to take responsibility for his team's struggles. "Obviously, it's not enough," Embiid said in regards to his lack of field goals throughout the entire game.

"We had a couple of guys that had it going, and there's nothing to really say about it," he explained. "The way I started in the first quarter, I just need to be more assertive, demand the ball, and just be more aggressive. We know what we have to fix. [There were] too many turnovers. Starting with me, I've got to take care of the ball. They had too many offensive rebounds. Looking at the game, we only lost by six points. We had a lot of turnovers, and they had a lot of second opportunities, so we got to fix that."

Embiid had the best solo performance out of all his teammates on Monday -- but the individual stats meant nothing to him. The three-time All-Star holds himself to a high standard and has proven that he's more than willing to put pressure on himself to do better. And while that could be a detrimental strategy in some ways, Sixers head coach Brett Brown sees it as a favorable situation.

"That's what we need from him," Brown said in regards to Embiid's postgame message on Monday.  "I respect it very much. The partnership that I have with him, I've coached him since he has come into the league and trying to help him achieve what he's saying he feels he has to do. I don't see this being a mutually exclusive responsibility. I very much respect his words. I believe what he says is what he genuinely feels, and I think he should." 

The Sixers and the Celtics tip-off for Game 2 on Wednesday at 6:30 PM EST.

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