Jokic Making a lot of folks look dumb

[liquidswords]

Let's conveniently leave out that another center is playing through a knee injury and played a first round series where he was blitz doubled/tripled on every touch.

[Ambrose]

Listen, Jokic has been great, so I'm not trying to downplay that. But Embiid has faced Ayton 8 times in his career, and averaged 36 points and 14 rebounds over that span. If Sixers were playing Phoenix and Jokic was playing Boston, it would NOT be the same. Just like Bam is a bad matchup for Randle who would surely be playing a lot better against most other teams. Matchups, matchups, matchups.

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

[Jadoogar]

cant call him the best player in the world when he can get exploited like he does vs teams like warriors

Not sure what you're talking about, Jokic was awesome against the Warriors in the playoffs last year. Despite losing in 5 games it was still a pretty close and competitive series and it was basically Jokic and a bunch of fringe NBA rotation guys against the eventual champs.

and it's such a weird thing to say. pretty much no one could stop prime steph curry, especially a center.

[Lockdown504090]

cant call him the best player in the world when he can get exploited like he does vs teams like warriors

Not sure what you're talking about, Jokic was awesome against the Warriors in the playoffs last year. Despite losing in 5 games it was still a pretty close and competitive series and it was basically Jokic and a bunch of fringe NBA rotation guys against the eventual champs.

and it's such a weird thing to say. pretty much no one could stop prime steph curry, especially a center.

Read on Twitter

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[GeorgeMarcus]

Listen, Jokic has been great, so I'm not trying to downplay that. But Embiid has faced Ayton 8 times in his career, and averaged 36 points and 14 rebounds over that span. If Sixers were playing Phoenix and Jokic was playing Boston, it would NOT be the same. Just like Bam is a bad matchup for Randle who would surely be playing a lot better against most other teams. Matchups, matchups, matchups.

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

There is a glaring difference in defensive scheme against the 2 players, which I know might sound counterintuitive based on how good Jokic is offensively, but Joel's manner of scoring is such that teams HAVE to load up on him to prevent a consistent stream of buckets. Horford is a great defender but the Celtics collapse on Joel every time he touches the ball. It was more glaring than ever in the quadruple doink Raptors series because they straight up didn't put a body on Ben Jokic on the other hand sets his teammates up for easy buckets so naturally defenders have to stick their man accordingly.

There's also the fact that Embiid is in another universe defensively, which conveniently is hardest to quantify statistically. I don't want to make this about knocking Jokic because he's an unbelievable talent but per usual the anti-Embiid arguments are seriously lacking in context

[Jadoogar]

Listen, Jokic has been great, so I'm not trying to downplay that. But Embiid has faced Ayton 8 times in his career, and averaged 36 points and 14 rebounds over that span. If Sixers were playing Phoenix and Jokic was playing Boston, it would NOT be the same. Just like Bam is a bad matchup for Randle who would surely be playing a lot better against most other teams. Matchups, matchups, matchups.

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

lol the guy is saying that Embiid would dominate Ayton while he averaged 23 ppg against Nic Claxton.

[iLLmatic860]

Not sure what you're talking about, Jokic was awesome against the Warriors in the playoffs last year. Despite losing in 5 games it was still a pretty close and competitive series and it was basically Jokic and a bunch of fringe NBA rotation guys against the eventual champs.

and it's such a weird thing to say. pretty much no one could stop prime steph curry, especially a center.

Read on Twitter

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anybody can pull a clip of a point taking advantage of a match up

you realize that AD can also rim protect?

can you say the same about Jokic?

im interested to see this Lakers/Nuggets matchup tho.

Nuggets better hope they can make finals because they are easily better than anybody in the east

[Jadoogar]

Not sure what you're talking about, Jokic was awesome against the Warriors in the playoffs last year. Despite losing in 5 games it was still a pretty close and competitive series and it was basically Jokic and a bunch of fringe NBA rotation guys against the eventual champs.

and it's such a weird thing to say. pretty much no one could stop prime steph curry, especially a center.

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=X9mumPGLsRqqzpaDgtqZBg

I never said Jokic is a better defender than AD, he's obviously not.
But could AD do what Jokic did offensive during game 4? I highly doubt it. To say he's not the best player in the league because he couldn't stop Steph Curry is crazy.

[Ambrose]

Listen, Jokic has been great, so I'm not trying to downplay that. But Embiid has faced Ayton 8 times in his career, and averaged 36 points and 14 rebounds over that span. If Sixers were playing Phoenix and Jokic was playing Boston, it would NOT be the same. Just like Bam is a bad matchup for Randle who would surely be playing a lot better against most other teams. Matchups, matchups, matchups.

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

There is a glaring difference in defensive scheme against the 2 players, which I know might sound counterintuitive based on how good Jokic is offensively, but Joel's manner of scoring is such that teams HAVE to load up on him to prevent a consistent stream of buckets. Horford is a great defender but the Celtics collapse on Joel every time he touches the ball. It was more glaring than ever in the quadruple doink Raptors series because they straight up didn't put a body on Ben Jokic on the other hand sets his teammates up for easy buckets so naturally defenders have to stick their man accordingly.

There's also the fact that Embiid is in another universe defensively, which conveniently is hardest to quantify statistically. I don't want to make this about knocking Jokic because he's an unbelievable talent but per usual the anti-Embiid arguments are seriously lacking in context

I'm not even disagreeing that you have to scheme differently against them, but that doesn't really address what I said. Jokic is statistically a better, more resilient, more efficient postseason scorer by a clear margin, and that's ignoring the passing gap. If you want to go that route and say it's because of how they are defended, I'd argue it's a plus for Jokic that you can't guard him like you can Embiid because of his playmaking while the reverse isn't true.

[p0peye]

Listen, Jokic has been great, so I'm not trying to downplay that. But Embiid has faced Ayton 8 times in his career, and averaged 36 points and 14 rebounds over that span. If Sixers were playing Phoenix and Jokic was playing Boston, it would NOT be the same. Just like Bam is a bad matchup for Randle who would surely be playing a lot better against most other teams. Matchups, matchups, matchups.

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

There is a glaring difference in defensive scheme against the 2 players, which I know might sound counterintuitive based on how good Jokic is offensively, but Joel's manner of scoring is such that teams HAVE to load up on him to prevent a consistent stream of buckets. Horford is a great defender but the Celtics collapse on Joel every time he touches the ball. It was more glaring than ever in the quadruple doink Raptors series because they straight up didn't put a body on Ben Jokic on the other hand sets his teammates up for easy buckets so naturally defenders have to stick their man accordingly.

There's also the fact that Embiid is in another universe defensively, which conveniently is hardest to quantify statistically. I don't want to make this about knocking Jokic because he's an unbelievable talent but per usual the anti-Embiid arguments are seriously lacking in context

Does that universe include All NBA defensive teams?

[Lockdown504090]

and it's such a weird thing to say. pretty much no one could stop prime steph curry, especially a center.

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=X9mumPGLsRqqzpaDgtqZBg

I never said Jokic is a better defender than AD, he's obviously not.
But could AD do what Jokic did offensive during game 4? I highly doubt it. To say he's not the best player in the league because he couldn't stop Steph Curry is crazy.

Not at all, I just don’t like this attitude people have that nba superstars can’t be defended successfully. Good defense matters just as much as good offense.

[Adam Stern]

Embiid is already widely considered the best center in the league and people here refuse to accept it. It's not my bias but those that run deep around here and have for years. It's why desperation threads like this continue to pop up.
Don't let a lack of objectivity induce you to dismiss opposing thought as bias.

Bruh

Insightful response.
Thanks for sharing.

It has nothing to do with bitterness. What has Embiid accomplished in the playoffs? Posters in this thread crapping all over Jokic for his lack of playoff success, when he has gone deeper in the playoffs, with less talented teammates and in a tougher conference than Embiid.

So, before we start talking about Embiid not getting respect for going 16-0 in the playoffs, let's see him get to 8 wins and make it past the 2nd round. To date, the most games Embiid has won in the playoffs is 6. That's an awful long way from 16.

BTW, even in PHI gets to past the 2nd round this year. Embiid will have only led them to 6 wins at that point as he missed the Game 4 win over BRK and the Game 1 win over BOS. So, still a LONG way from 16 wins.

Failure (or refusal) to acknowledge the bitterness and acrimony around here about Embiid's MVP only further proves my point.

Yes its just the people on here who refuse to accept it. Its not like Jokic has been a 3x 1st team All NBA guy and each time has beat out Embiid. Or the fact that Jokic has 2 MVPs to Embiids 1, and that is viewed as a far more of a narrative based MVP than actual production.

But ya its just the people on here who refuse to accept Embiid as the best center...

Surely you can build a better straw man than that.

I have no dog in this fight. I follow the NBA as a whole more than any particular team. My only vested interest in this years playoffs is the hope that Chris Paul finally gets a ring.
That being the case I can tell you that the vitriol and animus over Embiid's MVP is appreciably more intense on this board compared to most other forums I frequent.
None of this should come as a surprise as it is totally in keeping with the history of the RealGM GB.

So yeah, feel free to continue projecting emotional disingenuous responses to perspectives that don't jibe with your own, I know it gets quite comfy in that echo chamber.
But if any of you ever get tired of the pleasures of your perpetual circle-jerk, I hope you can muster the courage to step outside and applying some critical thought.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Listen, Jokic has been great, so I'm not trying to downplay that. But Embiid has faced Ayton 8 times in his career, and averaged 36 points and 14 rebounds over that span. If Sixers were playing Phoenix and Jokic was playing Boston, it would NOT be the same. Just like Bam is a bad matchup for Randle who would surely be playing a lot better against most other teams. Matchups, matchups, matchups.

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

lol the guy is saying that Embiid would dominate Ayton while he averaged 23 ppg against Nic Claxton.

That's a weird thing to say as (1) Claxton is certainly a better defender than Ayton and (2) I provided hard proof of Embiid dominating Ayton. Literally never scored less than 33 points in their 8 matchups lol

[GeorgeMarcus]

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

lol the guy is saying that Embiid would dominate Ayton while he averaged 23 ppg against Nic Claxton.

That's a weird thing to say as (1) Claxton is certainly a better defender than Ayton and (2) I provided hard proof of Embiid dominating Ayton. Literally never scored less than 33 points in their 8 matchups lol

Oh yeah and (3) he didn't struggle against Claxton so idk what you're talking about... more of a facilitating/screen setting role than normal but efficiency was good (61TS%), he owned the glass, and his defense was outstanding

[GeorgeMarcus]

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

There is a glaring difference in defensive scheme against the 2 players, which I know might sound counterintuitive based on how good Jokic is offensively, but Joel's manner of scoring is such that teams HAVE to load up on him to prevent a consistent stream of buckets. Horford is a great defender but the Celtics collapse on Joel every time he touches the ball. It was more glaring than ever in the quadruple doink Raptors series because they straight up didn't put a body on Ben Jokic on the other hand sets his teammates up for easy buckets so naturally defenders have to stick their man accordingly.

There's also the fact that Embiid is in another universe defensively, which conveniently is hardest to quantify statistically. I don't want to make this about knocking Jokic because he's an unbelievable talent but per usual the anti-Embiid arguments are seriously lacking in context

I'm not even disagreeing that you have to scheme differently against them, but that doesn't really address what I said. Jokic is statistically a better, more resilient, more efficient postseason scorer by a clear margin, and that's ignoring the passing gap. If you want to go that route and say it's because of how they are defended, I'd argue it's a plus for Jokic that you can't guard him like you can Embiid because of his playmaking while the reverse isn't true.

What you are missing is the effect collapsing on Embiid has on his teammates. If you collapse on one guy then the other guys become more open. No, Embiid is not the passer Jokic is (or anything close to it) but his presence sets his team up for success in a very different fashion. That's why historically his +/- data in the playoffs has been off the charts despite subpar scoring/efficiency.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

There is a glaring difference in defensive scheme against the 2 players, which I know might sound counterintuitive based on how good Jokic is offensively, but Joel's manner of scoring is such that teams HAVE to load up on him to prevent a consistent stream of buckets. Horford is a great defender but the Celtics collapse on Joel every time he touches the ball. It was more glaring than ever in the quadruple doink Raptors series because they straight up didn't put a body on Ben Jokic on the other hand sets his teammates up for easy buckets so naturally defenders have to stick their man accordingly.

There's also the fact that Embiid is in another universe defensively, which conveniently is hardest to quantify statistically. I don't want to make this about knocking Jokic because he's an unbelievable talent but per usual the anti-Embiid arguments are seriously lacking in context

Does that universe include All NBA defensive teams?

Not sure what you're point is but Embiid has been on those teams including a runner up DPOY. Generally guys like JoJo and Giannis don't get the respect they deserve in that award because their offensive usage is so high unlike role players and defensive specialists. One only has so much energy to expend in a game

[Jadoogar]

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

lol the guy is saying that Embiid would dominate Ayton while he averaged 23 ppg against Nic Claxton.

That's a weird thing to say as (1) Claxton is certainly a better defender than Ayton and (2) I provided hard proof of Embiid dominating Ayton. Literally never scored less than 33 points in their 8 matchups lol

1. Claxton is nearly 35lb lighter than Ayton, i don't care about weakside blocks in this situation, he's just not strong enough to deal with Embiid 1 one 1
2. Regular season games, especially against interconference opponents, is pretty meaningless. Who knows which players were playing in those games, who was on a back to back, etc
3. Jokic is putting up dominant numbers in the playoffs, the likes of which embiid has never done.

[GeorgeMarcus]

lol the guy is saying that Embiid would dominate Ayton while he averaged 23 ppg against Nic Claxton.

That's a weird thing to say as (1) Claxton is certainly a better defender than Ayton and (2) I provided hard proof of Embiid dominating Ayton. Literally never scored less than 33 points in their 8 matchups lol

1. Claxton is nearly 35lb lighter than Ayton, i don't care about weakside blocks in this situation, he's just not strong enough to deal with Embiid 1 one 1
2. Regular season games, especially against interconference opponents, is pretty meaningless. Who knows which players were playing in those games, who was on a back to back, etc
3. Jokic is putting up dominant numbers in the playoffs, the likes of which embiid has never done.

1.) Do you realize the type of defenders that give Embiid the most trouble are Horford/Bam/Draymond etc? Big defenders do not fare well against Joel. Gasol was an exception to the rule and frankly wasn't the type to use his size as much as making smart rotations and establishing great positioning
2.) Sure? Embiid has dominated in the playoffs against mid defensive teams like the 22 Hawks or 21 Wiz or 19 Nets. But the main teams he has faced in the playoffs are the Celtics/Heat/Raptors when they were better
3.) Which numbers are you using to qualify defense, which is literally half the game? At the end of the day I only care about impact and trying to analyze a player through that lens. Jokic will likely have better box stats throughout their careers but the question is, how much does it impact winning? The answer for both Jokic and Embid: they impact winning A LOT and have done so since their NBA baptisms. Embiid has a slightly more impressive impact profile but not enough to separate the 2 in any meaningful way. Jokic deserves all the credit he is getting, but Embiid deserves that same level of credit. It just sounds like you are putting way too much emphasis on box production... the type of **** that would indicate that Hassan Whiteside was better than Marc Gasol Impact, bro. Impact.

[Peregrine01]

Listen, Jokic has been great, so I'm not trying to downplay that. But Embiid has faced Ayton 8 times in his career, and averaged 36 points and 14 rebounds over that span. If Sixers were playing Phoenix and Jokic was playing Boston, it would NOT be the same. Just like Bam is a bad matchup for Randle who would surely be playing a lot better against most other teams. Matchups, matchups, matchups.

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

There is a glaring difference in defensive scheme against the 2 players, which I know might sound counterintuitive based on how good Jokic is offensively, but Joel's manner of scoring is such that teams HAVE to load up on him to prevent a consistent stream of buckets. Horford is a great defender but the Celtics collapse on Joel every time he touches the ball. It was more glaring than ever in the quadruple doink Raptors series because they straight up didn't put a body on Ben Jokic on the other hand sets his teammates up for easy buckets so naturally defenders have to stick their man accordingly.

There's also the fact that Embiid is in another universe defensively, which conveniently is hardest to quantify statistically. I don't want to make this about knocking Jokic because he's an unbelievable talent but per usual the anti-Embiid arguments are seriously lacking in context

This is rather hyperbolic. Embiid hasn’t really been the kind of defender you’re making him out to be since 2019. He’s more physically gifted than Jokic on that end but he routinely takes plays off cause his conditioning isn’t there. Jokic makes up ground by trying harder, especially at the end of games. Nuggets have been better defensively than Philly in these playoffs anyway.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Okay...

Jokic has never averaged under 24 ppg in a postseason.

Embiid has averaged under 24 ppg in 4/6 postseasons, including this one. That's on worse efficiency currently and historically.

There is a pretty clear gap between the two as playoff scorers.

There is a glaring difference in defensive scheme against the 2 players, which I know might sound counterintuitive based on how good Jokic is offensively, but Joel's manner of scoring is such that teams HAVE to load up on him to prevent a consistent stream of buckets. Horford is a great defender but the Celtics collapse on Joel every time he touches the ball. It was more glaring than ever in the quadruple doink Raptors series because they straight up didn't put a body on Ben Jokic on the other hand sets his teammates up for easy buckets so naturally defenders have to stick their man accordingly.

There's also the fact that Embiid is in another universe defensively, which conveniently is hardest to quantify statistically. I don't want to make this about knocking Jokic because he's an unbelievable talent but per usual the anti-Embiid arguments are seriously lacking in context

This is rather hyperbolic. Embiid hasn’t really been the kind of defender you’re making him out to be since 2019. He’s more physically gifted than Jokic on that end but he routinely takes plays off cause his conditioning isn’t there. Jokic makes up ground by trying harder, especially at the end of games. Nuggets have been better defensively than Philly in these playoffs anyway.

Strongly disagree in the context of this playoff discussion. Embiid's defense has been as elite as ever. Your argument might have some merit in terms of RS though there's still a sizable gap between the 2