What we witnessed on Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia was something short of a coronation. After all, coronations do not happen in the second round of the playoffs, and they most certainly do not happen in a Game 3.
What the Philadelphia 76ers' 116-95 blowout of the visiting Toronto Raptors was, however, was a terrifying vision of what the best version of the 76ers look like.
And, woo boy -- that's a team that not only can win the East. That's a team that maybe, just maybe, can win it all, and get that official coronation come June.
We knew going into the playoffs this Sixers starting five -- Joel Embiid, Jimmy "James" Butler, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris and J.J. Redick -- was one of the top five-man lineups in the NBA. We also knew that these Sixers brought with them as much variance as any other top-tier team in the NBA. There was the lack of depth to account for. The lack of spacing. The fact this group only had a couple months together to jell after the trade deadline. The combustibility of Butler, the inexperience of Simmons, and most of all, that nagging knee of Embiid. All these things meant there was as vast of a gap between the Sixers' ceiling and the Sixers' floor as any other team left in these playoffs.
The Sixers need things to go right.
But when the things do go right…well, that was Thursday night. Embiid played nothing short of MVP-level basketball. He made 3s -- in fact, he made three of his four attempts from beyond the arc -- but the key was that Embiid wasn't settling for 3s, and that he wasn't settling for jumpers. He attacked the rim. He got deep post position against Marc Gasol. He was a Defensive Player of the Year-caliber rim protector, blocking five shots, some of them in demoralizing fashion for the poor Raptors. He finished with 33 points and 10 rebounds, and he only turned the ball over three times. String together a bunch of 82-game seasons like this, and the argument that commentator Mark Jackson made (and that Jeff Van Gundy heatedly disputed) is correct: This is an all-time great big man we are watching blossom before our eyes.
Jimmy "James" Butler was once again the "adult in the room," to use 76ers head coach Brett Brown's term; he was just shy of a triple-double with 22 points, nine assists and nine rebounds, and Brown's move to give Butler minutes at backup point guard appears to be a savvy, savvy adjustment. Simmons may not have been some offensive force, but he once against played an elite defensive game, and he hustled every minute he was on the floor. Redick knocked down his 3s (3-of-6 from beyond the arc), and Harris did whatever he was asked as one of the best third or fourth options in the game.
Part of this looking like the best version of the Sixers was that this also looked like the worst version of the Raptors. Yeah, sure, it was a close ballgame until the Sixers went on their 21-2 run at the beginning of the fourth quarter to blow this thing wide open. But it being a close ballgame almost felt like an accident; this was not the Raptors at their best. Kawhi Leonard was typically great, scoring 33 points on 22 shots while playing excellent defense. Pascal Siakam wasn't dominant, but he was certainly a net positive for the Raptors, as was Danny Green. But where was Kyle Lowry? He once again turned into a pumpkin come playoff time, scoring seven points on 10 shots, missing all of his 3s and looking like a defensive liability.
"We've gotta help [Leonard], myself especially," Lowry told reporters after the game. "I've gotta help him, score more, gotta help him on the floor. We've all gotta help him. He's playing unbelievable right now, but we're not giving him any help. Me, I'm not giving him any help. Gotta help him."
Marc Gasol not only got dominated by Embiid, but was also a nonentity on the offensive end, passing up open 3s in favor of pointless ball movement and scoring only seven points. And that once-vaunted Raptors bench? Trash. They scored a total of seven points before this game entered into garbage time with about five minutes left in the fourth quarter. Where was Fred VanVleet? Where was Serge Ibaka? Nowhere to be found.
Honestly, though, what the Raptors do in this series may not matter if the Sixers can play a couple more games like this. This version of the Sixers will be really, really hard to beat. Certainly Nick Nurse will go back to the drawing board to come up with something before Game 4. But really, what can stop Embiid when he's playing like this? There are three things: His knee, his hubris, or some nasty stomach bug. That's it. And Embiid playing like this is the key that unlocks greatness in the rest of the Sixers.
This series is not over -- not by a long shot. The Sixers are still a team with question marks. They can still revert to something closer to their floor than their ceiling.
But if they can keep playing as close to their ceiling as they did on Thursday, then this team is going to be playing basketball well into June.
