After Game 4 stinker, Joel Embiid needs to take a backseat to Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe
Maxey in particular has made it clear that he deserves to be the Sixers’ primary scorer and that the Sixers deserve him as their primary scorer.
Joel Embiid didn’t lose Game 4 for the 76ers.
He didn’t win it for them, either.
Somewhere in between is a conundrum that will define the upcoming Sixers summer and those in the foreseeable future.
How do you fashion a competitive roster that is centered around two young scoring guards but also accommodates a ball-dominant center whenever he happens to be available to play?
How do you coach such a roster?
These may not be Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse’s problems to solve if the Sixers can’t solve what plagued them in a 128-96 loss to the Celtics on Sunday night. This was the kind of loss that can lose hearts and minds in a hurry. When Embiid and Paul George headed to the bench with 5:31 remaining, they’d combined to attempt nearly half of the Sixers shots, and to miss well more than half of those. Taking a conspicuous back seat was the aforementioned guards.
Two games removed from a star-making effort in a Game 2 win in Boston, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe combined for just 23 shot attempts. Meanwhile, Embiid took 21 on his own, not including four trips to the foul line. There was a stretch in the third quarter where he appeared to find his groove. By that point, the Sixers were struggling just to keep their deficit below 20. When all was said and done, Embiid and George had combined for 42 points on 15-of-34 shooting.
» READ MORE: Joel Embiid’s big return, Payton Pritchard’s big first half and more of what we learned from the Sixers’ Game 4 loss
It probably didn’t matter a whole lot for the game or for the series, which the Sixers now trail three games to one heading into a potential clinching Game 5 in Boston on Tuesday. Maxey and Edgecombe combined to hit just 9-of-23 shots for 28 points. Maxey was a solid 7-for-24 for 22 points. Edgecombe missed seven of his nine shots, including all four of his three-point attempts. Whether or not that framing is fair is mostly beside the point. It was a bad look. Real bad.
“I think that both Tyrese’s low shot attempt and VJ’s low shot attempts, those guys both need to make sure they are getting their cracks at it,” Nurse said after the loss.
The Sixers are heading into a summer where the framing is going to matter. Absent a defined direction and a believable competitive narrative, they will struggle to convince more than a small handful of the fanbase that the 2026-27 season is worthy of its disposable attention and emotional investment. You can only suck people back in so many times before they end up dead inside.
All of that would have been true regardless of how Game 4 played out. What we saw didn’t make it any more or less true. But what we saw is inexcusable at this stage of the Sixers’ trajectory. Maxey in particular has made it clear that he deserves to be the Sixers’ primary scorer and that the Sixers deserve him as their primary scorer. In Game 4, he entered halftime with just four shot attempts.
“He’s got to certainly be a bigger focal point and get some more shots off for sure,” Nurse said.
But therein lies the conundrum. Embiid is always going to be a player who ends up with the ball in his hands and a decent look at the basket. He is wired to take those opportunities. He has had a lot of success doing it. Even in Game 4, there were moments when you saw the success he can still have if he can keep himself on the court with any regularity. It’s not that he was actively demanding the ball. He is a player who demands it simply with his presence.
The presence is the problem, because it comes coupled with enough absences to make it nearly impossible for guys like Maxey and Edgecombe to figure out how to do what they do best while Embiid is on the court.
It’s a conundrum, and it’s a stretch to think the Sixers will solve it fast enough to extend their season.
