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Joel Embiid thanked Payton Pritchard for providing extra motivation during playoff series
"He said they didn't care if I was playing or not and they hadn't even adjusted or had sort of game-plan around me."
Joel Embiid missed the first three games of the Celtics-Sixers opening round playoff series, but was so dominant after returning that it flipped the whole thing.
He told reporters that he got some extra motivation from some comments that Payton Pritchard made ahead of Game 3.
“Obviously I was 0-3 in Game 7s, so I just wanted to bring the energy,” Embiid said. “But it does also help when I saw [Pritchard], he said they didn’t care if I was playing or not and they hadn’t even adjusted or had sort of game-plan around me.
“So, I think it helps when the other team doesn’t worry about you … it helps you have better games, so I thank [Pritchard] for that.”
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Boston had a 3-1 lead, but dropped the final three games including Game 7 at TD Garden on Saturday. After the loss, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla pointed to Embiid’s presence as one of the biggest reasons Philadelphia was able to complete such a comeback.
“What changed in the series was Joel Embiid came back, and they were a completely different team,” said Mazzulla.
But leading up to Embiid’s return, there were some comments on the Boston side about how they weren’t scared of the prospect of Embiid’s comeback.
Jaylen Brown said on his Twitch livestream that he thought the Sixers “might be a little better without Embiid.”
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He later went back and added context to his comments, noting that they came about a week before the start of the series. Philadelphia had played more than half of the regular season without Embiid, who played in just 38 games.
“At the time, they were [better],” Brown said. “They were playing really well and we didn’t really get a full look at their team, so it definitely was an adjustment for us.”
Pritchard said the following during pre-game availability ahead of Game 3:
“I don’t think we’ve talked about it at all. If he plays, he plays, we’ll figure that out, but it’s not like we’re sitting here worried if he’s playing or not.”
At that point, Pritchard said, the Celtics had yet to game-plan for Embiid. The 7-foot, 280-pound center came back with a vengeance in the final four games, averaging 28 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists.
Brown said he had never seen Embiid reach that level of dominance before.
The performance earned Embiid his first victory in a Game 7. It marked the first time Philadelphia had eliminated Boston from the playoffs since 1982.
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