In TV studios op Twitter feeds and in living rooms throughout the Philadelphia area, people want to know: Why is Joel Embiid just destroying the Boston Celtics in the post? He is unstoppable after that, and Boston often proves to be at a significant major disadvantage.
So, why do we not only see him do what he did in the first quarters of Games 1 and 2?
Why has Embiid had a field goal percentage of just 44.1 in 17 regular season and playoff games against Boston in the past three seasons, but makes shots on a clip of 47.8 percent overall in that time frame? And why did the Sixers average just 1,049 points per game against Boston on trips that included an Embiid post at that time – the fourth worst figure they have recorded against the 21 opponents Embiid has placed at least 50 times?
You can even blame Embiid for not being assertive enough. You could blame 76ers coach Brett Brown for not creating creatively enough ways to get Embiid the ball in advantageous positions. (Only 45 of Embiid’s 194 post-ups against the Celtics since 2017-18 have come after one or more ball reversals, per Second Spectrum.) You can blame the Sixers’ guards and wings for their apparent inability to throw simple entry passes. Debt who and what you want. But credit the Boston defense as well.
During the broadcast of Game 2, TNT analyst Stan Van Gundy repeatedly made notes about how Embiid did not get his touch to the rim enough. That’s a long running trend. The Celtics have regularly forced Embiid to catch the ball further from the court than he has against other teams, according to data from Second Spectrum provided to FiveThirtyEight. His average record catch in all regular season and postseason games against non-Boston teams is 13.8 feet away from the edge, compared to 14.5 feet in all games against Boston. (And it’s 14.9 feet in just the playoff games against Boston.) An extra foot or so may not seem like much, but it can be the difference between an easy layup and forcing a heel shot over the top of a defender.
In part because the Celtics are so good at pushing him off his spots, the Sixers have also taken longer to pass the ball to Embiid in the post against the Celtics than they have against other teams, wait normally 3.1 seconds against the Celtics against 2.7 seconds against other teams. And once Embiid actually gets the ball low, the Celtics have done a better job, avoiding offense than other teams, and Embiid balled at just 14.4 percent of his post-ups compared to 18.5 percent against everyone else, per Second Spectrum. Boston has forced Embiid to pass the ball more often, giving up 28.9 percent of the time, or 3.2 percentage points more than passing other teams.
So how’s Boston dealing with Embiid’s post-ups? Why do the strategies executed by Brad Stevens and company give the Sixers problems?
What Boston does is both simple and complex. The goal seems to be to force Embiid so far from the rim before he gets the ball; plant, once he catches the ball, plant as many bodies as possible between Embiid and the rim. The Celtics are extremely coordinated when it comes to performing pre-post-up switches. They know Embiid wants to post, and they know the Sixers want to post Embiid, so they contort themselves to make sure he doesn’t get too advantageous a matchup. (They will change themselves of the time a post-up, and they can pull it out.) If at all possible, they want their center to protect Embiid when he finally touches the ball on the block.
In the clip above, Jayson Tatum and Enes Kanter undoubtedly performed a switch on a back screen for Embiid, set up by James Ennis. It helped that they knew Ennis was not the target of the scene so they could just ignore him. Tatum had Ennis set his screen and cut to the opposite side of the court, and Tatum barely moved. He stayed where he was so he could intercept Embiid on his way down and give Kanter time to recover to the block. When Embiid caught and turned to go to the edge, Marcus Smart was just there to double down and force a deflection. This is also a trend: Boston has sent a double team in Embiid in the post 20 percent more often than the other 28 teams in the league in the past three seasons, per Second Spectrum.
If the Celtics are unable to get their center to Embiid when the entry pass is started, they will disengage the ball to ensure the center helps under the rim instead of hanging on the perimeter. In the clip below, Gordon Hayward, Jaylen Brown and Daniel Theis performed a three-pointer, so although Embiid placed the much smaller Brown, the Celtics could feel comfortable knowing that Theis was the one giving help near ‘ and edge.
It helped the Celtics there that the Sixers had Ben Simmons, who is not a leapfrogging threat, as one of the two players who were already on the weak side, which is how Theis could feel comfortable around Harris not to protect when he made his way across the floor. Without many shooters on the floor, the Celtics had the freedom to carry out the rest of their plan.
When Embiid himself steps foot in the paint, the nearest defender slips over to refuse an entrance pass until the man waiting for Embiid can steel himself enough to force Embiid out of his place. Once they manage to push him further off the course, the Celtics do absolutely everything they can to ignore the non-shooters. Consider in the montage below how many times two Celtics defended three Sixers on the weak side while two were on Embiid. Simmons, Al Horford, Matisse Thybulle … anyone who’s not a plus shooter gets the full Tony Allen treatment.
What the Celtics want to avoid is to simply support Embiid with his man in the sidewalk and lie down easily. Once they get far enough on the floor that he has to turn the edge and look to the edge, whoever the Sixer claims goes, Embiidskaden goes away to help him against it. When Embiid puts it on the floor, the helper comes over completely, and everyone shifts the position thereafter. It’s a lot of work, designed to put Embiid himself a lot of work to get the ball in the court.
The Sixers obviously know all this, and so does Embiid. They have seen it in action for several years now. They have occasionally shown a willingness to swing the ball side-by-side and get Embiid good position on duck-ins, but that willingness tends not to last, and for long they are punished back for make entry adjustments to stagnant post-ups.
Now after 2-0 in the series, the Sixers need to find some answers. Against Boston, they probably won’t get everything so easily.
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