MVP will be determined by tomorrow's Embiid v Jokic showdown

[DroseReturnChi]

Loads of denial and rationalizations to cope with the Embiid loss.

Jokic was better overall. I mentioned it in the game thread. His gravity as a passer is too much. Best player on the floor in the 4th when it mattered, baited Embiid into a foul, went at him for the game sealing bucket, and just the superior overall offensive game.

Don't understand how anyone can say Embiid outplayed him unless you look at box scores and scoring.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

the excuses is ridiculous considering i was going to crown joel mvp. he simply lost 1 on 1 no need to bring up bone crap when your getting gifted fts.

[DrModesty]

Thought Harden was the best player on the floor tonight.

24/11/9 on only 11 shots. Most efficient player in the game tonight, while facing consistent double teams. Denver were clearly scared of his ability to orchestrate the offense and find the open man. This was evidenced by Mike Malone scheming Jokic to double team Harden and leave Embiid open.

Embiid should really have been more able to take advantage. You would think that an MVP candidate would go for close to 50 if their defender was giving him open looks and space. Can't scoff too much at 35/9/4 but it feels like we got more solid than spectacular. There were a few times Harden found him out of the double team and he was either slow to attack or he passed to team mates who were less open than he was. I thought he had the chance to completely dominate and force Malone's hand into allowing Harden to puppet master a win but it never happened. Very lucky not to foul out too.

Defense was good but not outstanding which has been a bit of a theme with him this year. Probably doesn't get one of the all defense big spots for bigs ahead of Giannis, Gobert, JJJ, Rob Williams, Bam and Draymond. There are others you could argue ahead of him too, but those 6 I think are clearly performing better on the defensive end.

Jokic looked very good in the first two minutes of the game with the block on Embiid and early points and from the time he came back in to the game mid second quarter onwards he was overall the best player on the floor. Pretty bad 6 minute stretch in the middle of the first though with some non close outs and poor passes so overall Harden definitely had the better game.

I thought he played really well on defense for the most part given the athletic limitations he has. A ton of movement and effort trying to double Harden and hedge back on to Embiid which is pretty counter to his toolkit but he did it well. Some steals and blocks too, definitely a positive defender now. Big time clutch plays and all around which is the norm for him.

Bones and Thybulle were both excellent. JaMychal Green was good too, hopefully Aaron Gordon comes back soon.

I had it Harden > Jokic > Embiid but all pretty close. Probably helped Jokic's MVP case more as his undermanned team got the win in Philly, but it was not a huge swing game either way like it could have been.

I have had mvp as Jokic 1st, Giannis 2nd and Embiid 3rd before the game with small but clear gaps between each one and this game didn't change my view at all.

I will say though, I think we are only getting 85-90% of Embiids potential at the moment. The guy needs to work on his conditioning more. His play the last 2 years has been a big step up from prior to that when Shaq and Chuck were deriding him for not trying hard enough, but he has another level and we aren't seeing it. He should be the best player on the planet but he isn't.

[Mrakar]

Embiid didn't have his usual 20 FTs

Funny how is this ignored in headlines, i guess Towns historic night help them forget this, or is it a fact that Nuggets won?

[dautjazz]

Jokic has been head and shoulders above the rest.

[tarantism]

And the MVP goes to...the birthday boy! Stephen Curry!

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Bobbymcgee]

Bones Hyland MVP

[Kobe187]

Both players had solid games, thought Embiid was a tad better between the two. Jokic made some nice buckets and very good passes but had a few turnovers as well, overall had a good game. Embiid was smooth as butter and made a lot of big buckets for the 76ers, had a couple nice blocks, drew a lot of attention offensively which freed up teammates, Philly relied more on Embiid than Denver did on Jokic which was a little surprising, the Nuggets bench had a great game. This game doesn’t really swing the mvp race much, both were excellent with Embiid being better by a hair. This was a fun game to watch.

[Luke Skyowner]

Embiid shouldn't even play.

Ahh, the mantra of today's NBA.

Like a clockwork. I think the second post here made excuse for Embiid to invalidate the op point.

[Gusto1903]

Did anyone watch the game and the strategy that Nuggets implemented? They were getting burned by 3's (Sixers 5/7) early by leaving Thybulle so they decided to let Jokic leave Embiid to double Harden on the pick and roll. The help defense would then only hedge until Jokic could recover or partly recover. Malone wanted Embiid to be the one to score but no one else. It's a good strategy and it worked as the Sixers ended up going 7/26 the rest of thew ay from 3.

Can the uneducated sixers fanboys please acknowledge this?

[FreeThrowLine]

I thought those 2 passes just before halftime by Jokic were much better than the ones that have previously been over hyped this season, both fantastic passes.

I'm glad Malone challenged that play in the 4th when Embiid just lowered himself and bulldozed into the Nuggets defender, it forced the refs to make the right call.

I also love the hard contest by Green on the Embiid drive, if you're going to flop like a fish at that size, every now and then you need a nice hard fall to the ground to balance things out

[rand]

Good game, both Jokic and Embiid played well and are great big men but one of the things that made great big man battles of the past so enjoyable was that the centers would so often go head to head possession after possession usually with minimal or no help. Because of how much switching and helping there is, Jokic and Embiid spent such a small proportion of the game directly defending each other even only counting the time both were on the court.

I know it wouldn't be a fair measurement of both players' ability because a fair chunk of Jokic' offensive value is predicated upon his ability to create for others, but I'd love to see a 1-on-1 game between these two to see who would have the upper hand mano a mano.

[Bum Adebayo]

As I said, this game changes nothing, if you believed Jokic was already MVP before this game, then he is still MVP. If you believed Embiid was MVP before, he should still be. They did nothing yesterday to separate themselves from each other or from Giannis for that matter.
Nuggets still miss Murray, while Sixers were on a back to back having to travel from road to home, there are some valid excuses for each team, and both players had a good game.

[Ferulci]

Moving goalposts, the thread.

[J_T]

Ja Morant might have something to say about this.

Yeah. And that is: "I congratulate the worthy winner", while clapping enthusiastically.

[Scottie4Bro]

Maybe we could have a co-MVP award this season lol

Please both fanboy camps

[The Rebel]

Did anyone watch the game and the strategy that Nuggets implemented? They were getting burned by 3's (Sixers 5/7) early by leaving Thybulle so they decided to let Jokic leave Embiid to double Harden on the pick and roll. The help defense would then only hedge until Jokic could recover or partly recover. Malone wanted Embiid to be the one to score but no one else. It's a good strategy and it worked as the Sixers ended up going 7/26 the rest of thew ay from 3.

But people will say Jokic played no defense. Yet had 2 blocks and two steals. It is like they don't understand basic defensive strategies

You are just now figuring this out? While Embiid may have been wide open, for some reason Harden had 1 hell of a time getting the ball to him. Just like many guards cannot get around Jokic's positioning and long arms.

[celticfan42487]

Poor Harden when Embiid chokes in the playoffs again like every season he will be next scapegoat.

I think you got the names switched.

He didn't. Embiid chokes in every playoffs and throws his teammates under the bus for it.

Harden just chokes.

They're the same player right now since Harden has regressed from his MVP level days. Same mental frailness, tied for the most unclutch players in the league, can't consistently generate offense through basketball and rely on flopping.

With Embiid it's always "someone else's" fault he fails in the clutch year after year. Eventually the narrative will switch and we'll see that dude couldn't win with anyone. Harden, Butler, Harris, Simmons, JJ Reddick, Maxey, Thybull doesn't matter.

[The Rebel]

Loads of denial and rationalizations to cope with the Embiid loss.

Jokic was better overall. I mentioned it in the game thread. His gravity as a passer is too much. Best player on the floor in the 4th when it mattered, baited Embiid into a foul, went at him for the game sealing bucket, and just the superior overall offensive game.

Don't understand how anyone can say Embiid outplayed him unless you look at box scores and scoring.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Because most of us watched the game while you watched the box score. Jokic had a bunch of assists throwing to wide open cherry pickers. Congratulations to him. Our fast break defense is abysmal. Everyone knows this.

The worst team in the league took us to overtime last night doing the same ****. Embiid did whatever he wanted to Jokic and lost when Jokic got carried by his bench while our bench is utter ****. Embiid outplayed Jokic by a wide margin and none of us give a **** because unlike Nuggets fans worrying about meaningless ****, we have championship aspirations that ends with Doc Rivers being the head coach. Much worse problems for us to worry about.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

LMAO, For not giving a **** there are an awful lot of banned words that you are using.
all those guys were wide open because the 76ers were too lazy to get back on defense, too bad the 76ers don't have anybody that can hit a guy in the chest at a full run on the other end of the court. Meanwhile Bones had a career night because the 76ers were triple covering JOkic and Embiid couldn't guard Jokic without fouling him while Jokic was shutting down both Harden and Embiid in the 4th when it mattered most.

[The Rebel]

Good game, both Jokic and Embiid played well and are great big men but one of the things that made great big man battles of the past so enjoyable was that the centers would so often go head to head possession after possession usually with minimal or no help. Because of how much switching and helping there is, Jokic and Embiid spent such a small proportion of the game directly defending each other even only counting the time both were on the court.

I know it wouldn't be a fair measurement of both players' ability because a fair chunk of Jokic' offensive value is predicated upon his ability to create for others, but I'd love to see a 1-on-1 game between these two to see who would have the upper hand mano a mano.

Embiid fouled Jokic 3 times quickly in the 1st half, he has no chance to cover Jokic. That is why they started playing Embiid on the Greens and doubling/tripling Jokic.

Jokic literally shut down multiple post ups by Embiid especially in the 4th quarter. In today's NBA that is the closest you will get to a true head to head when 1 guy is obviously overmatched.

[HotelVitale]

Did anyone watch the game and the strategy that Nuggets implemented? They were getting burned by 3's (Sixers 5/7) early by leaving Thybulle so they decided to let Jokic leave Embiid to double Harden on the pick and roll. The help defense would then only hedge until Jokic could recover or partly recover. Malone wanted Embiid to be the one to score but no one else. It's a good strategy and it worked as the Sixers ended up going 7/26 the rest of thew ay from 3.

Can the uneducated sixers fanboys please acknowledge this?

Huh, this takes a solid observation about the game and turns it into some nasty hater burn. Yes the Nuggets blitzed Harden and Harden frequently found Embiid as his roll man, but a) Embiid scored a lot of points off that and b) he found other players all day off that who missed shots or flubbed plays. Niang and Green shot 2/12 from 3 after the Sixers hot start, and they had mostly great looks. The second unit got crushed and the shooters played poorly, while the Nuggets got a lot of ridiculous shooting from their b-level guys. Not sure what the 'uneducated fanboys' are missing about the fact that you have to hit shots to win close games, or that your star can play well and you can still lose if the rest of the team gets outplayed by the other team's supporting cast.

Thing is Embiid didn't play particularly well in the 2nd half, and he looked pretty deer in headlights down the stretch at times, lots to critique there. But 'Embiid was given a golden carpet to score all game and he's the reason the team lost' is just garbage analysis.