By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Joel Embiid got his MVP award, but couldn’t help the Philadelphia 76ers reach the Eastern Conference finals, as the Boston Celtics defeated his team in Game 7 of the semifinal series 112-88.
Even though he and James Harden scored 24 points combined, after the match Embiid insisted that the rest of the team needed to step up.
“I still believe me and him, we got the chance to win. But, it’s gonna take more than us. We all got to look at ourselves. I gotta be better and I will be better. That’s what I’m focused on. You know, all of us, we’ve got to come back and find ways to just keep improving and help the team. You can’t win alone. I can’t win alone. Me and James, we just can’t win alone. You know, that’s why basketball is played five-on-five. So we just need everybody to try to keep finding ways to get better and we’ll be fine,” Embiid said.
He also referred to Giannis Antetokounmpo’s failure speech after the elimination in the first round to Miami Heat.
“For me, as I look at it, it’s a good step. As someone said: it’s not a failure, it’s steps to success.”
The Cameronian center admitted that dropping out in the conference semifinals was a failure.
“It doesn’t matter where you lose. You don’t get the trophy for being second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth. Doesn’t matter if you lose in the first round, Finals. There’s only one team that wins and if you didn’t accomplish that, are you gonna be happy for being second? I know I’m not. To me, if I don’t finish first, it is a failure. The rest doesn’t really matter,” Embiid concluded.
Joel Embiid finished the regular season as the top scorer of the NBA with 33,1 points per game and finally won the Most Valuable Player Award. During the playoffs, he dropped to 23,7 points on average in his nine performances.