After Game 4 stinker, Joel Embiid needs to take a backseat to Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe
Maxey has made it clear that he deserves to be the Sixers’ primary scorer and that they 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 on 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?
» READ MORE: Joel Embiid vows not to ‘cry about’ his latest postseason injury setback: ‘Some things you can’t control’
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. Less than a week ago, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe made the future look like the present while starring in a scintillating Sixers win that evened the series in Boston. On Sunday, with Embiid back in the lineup after a 20-day absence, the young duo played like they were wedged into an optional third row. Maxey somehow made it to halftime having attempted just three shots. Edgecombe had five. Meanwhile, Embiid and soon-to-be 36-year-old Paul George combined for 17 shots in the first half. The Sixers were down 18.
Maxey said all the right things afterward. And he was partially correct.
“That absolutely can’t happen,” he said. “That’s just unacceptable by me. It wasn’t meant to happen that way. We can’t win basketball games with that happening, and I take full responsibility on that one.”
Maxey does bear some responsibility. Even without Embiid on the floor, he can sometimes be a little too unselfish. But the bigger culprit in Game 4 was the presence of Embiid. Not that he was demanding the ball or forcing up shots. He didn’t need to. The ball finds him.
“It wasn’t intentional, it was kind of just the flow of the game, how the game was kind of going,” Maxey said.
Celtics lead 3-1
Game 1: Celtics 123, Sixers 91 | Murphy: Early offseason?
Game 2: Sixers 111, Celtics 97 | Murphy: Edgecombe steps up
Game 3: Celtics 108, Sixers 100 | Murphy: Reality of this series
Game 4: Celtics 128, Sixers 96 | Murphy: Maxey should be focus
Game 5: Sixers at Celtics, 7 p.m. Tuesday, ESPN
*Game 6: Celtics at Sixers, TBD Thursday
*Game 7: Sixers at Celtics, TBD Saturday
* If necessary
Therein lies the issue. With Embiid on the court, the flow of the game isn’t the same as when Andre Drummond and Adem Bona are out there primarily as screen-setters or last-ditch options. The entire pecking order is different. Maxey said Embiid and George both told him at halftime that he needs to “force” his way into the game. On the one hand, they were correct, given the circumstances. On the other hand, those aren’t ideal circumstances. Ideally, Maxey is the flow.
This is uncharted territory for all involved. Maxey entered Sunday having spent long stretches of the previous two games looking every bit the equal of Celtics superstars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The Sixers were clearly at their best when he knew that the weight of the game rested on his shoulders. But Maxey has spent his entire career playing for a team built around Embiid. So when Embiid suddenly returns to the court, old habits die hard. That has been the biggest cost of Embiid’s constant comings and goings as Maxey has evolved into a legitimate alpha scorer. He hasn’t had many opportunities to learn how to play that role alongside Embiid.
» 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
“He’s got to certainly be a bigger focal point and get some more shots off for sure,” Nurse said.
There is a similar dynamic between Edgecombe and George. The youngest NBA players see George as an icon. Nurse can preach all he wants about the need for his young guards to assert themselves, as he did after Game 4.
“It can’t go from 20 or 25 shots down to as low as it was, especially for VJ,” the Sixers coach said.
The issue is inherent. Guys like Embiid and George command the ball with their presence. When the duo headed to the bench with 5 minutes, 31 seconds remaining, they’d combined to attempt nearly half of the Sixers’ shots, and to miss well more than half of those.
Two games removed from their star-making effort in Game 2, Maxey and Edgecombe combined for just 23 shot attempts. Embiid took 21 on his own, not including four trips to the foul line. There was a stretch in the third quarter when 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.
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 on Tuesday in Boston. Maxey and Edgecombe combined to hit just 9 of 23 shots for 28 points. Maxey was a solid 7-for-14 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.
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The Sixers are heading into a summer when 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 fan base 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.
And 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.
That’s a hell of an “if.” Until it isn’t, then Embiid’s presence will be a 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 alongside him.
