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Joel Embiid is back and great for Sixers, which has given this playoff series against Raptors a new look | Mike Sielski

He had 33 points, 10 rebounds, and five blocks in just 28 minutes in Game 3. Look out, Raptors.

Joel Embiid of the Sixers does an Allen Iverson imitation cupping his hand to his ear as he celebrates after a windmill dunk against the Raptors during the 4th quarter of their NBA playoff game at the Wells Fargo Center on May 2, 2019.
Joel Embiid of the Sixers does an Allen Iverson imitation cupping his hand to his ear as he celebrates after a windmill dunk against the Raptors during the 4th quarter of their NBA playoff game at the Wells Fargo Center on May 2, 2019. Read more--- Charles Fox / Staff Photographer

He began the game badly, turning the ball over the first time he touched it, catching an errant pass from JJ Redick flush in the face and having to blink three times to clear his vision. There have been all sorts of events threatening, and sometimes succeeding, to make Joel Embiid unavailable for the 76ers throughout these playoffs: a tender knee, a couple of technical fouls, a stomach illness that drained him of fluids and energy. Now here he was in Game 3 of this Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Raptors, as healthy as he’s been in the postseason, and for those first few minutes he was all thumbs.

Bad start, fine finish. Embiid was the best player on the floor Thursday night in a 116-95 victory – 33 points, 10 rebounds, five blocked shots, a plus-31 in just 28 minutes of playing time – and his marvelous performance was the most important development so far in this series for the Sixers. From Marc Gasol’s defense to his own gastrointestinal teacup ride, Embiid had been a ghost of himself in those two games in Toronto, missing 18 of his 25 shots from the field, scoring a total of 28 points, everyone clinging to some decent post defense and one skillful, well-timed basket at the end of Game 2 as signs that he could and would return to form.

He returned, all right. He went beyond anything anyone had seen out of him in last year’s postseason or this one. He was himself again and then some: sinking three of four three-point attempts, baiting Pascal Siakem into a flagrant foul when Siakem tried to trip him and Embiid went flying like Bobby Orr after a big goal, surging through the lane to throw down a windmill dunk and extending his arms to his sides in the aftermath, as if he and his team were just taking off. He cupped his hand to his ear to coax more noise from the already-frenzied Wells Fargo Center. He waved to the crowd. After swatting away a shot by Siakem, he nodded his head as if he knew the block was coming, as if it were a matter of course. It was showmanship that, just maybe, crossed the line into arrogance and gracelessness. Embiid doesn’t give a rip about either interpretation. He plays that way because he believes he needs to.

“When I have fun, my game just changes,” he said. “I know that, to get my game going, I’ve got to have fun on the court. The theatrics, it has to happen for me.”

If there was any residual self-doubt or any lingering physical effects from Games 1 and 2, Embiid had cast them aside over the previous two days. “With a high level of maturity and as an extremely prideful sort of student,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said. “As a series unfolds, young players just sort of accrue information and experience. It’s interesting for me to judge: What do those guys do with it as time unfolds, as they gain more knowledge? For those of you who do know Joel, he’s intelligent. He’s very intelligent. And you take that base and that pride and that competitiveness and you add a little experience to co-exist with those characteristics, and I think it produces a more informed player.”

That smarter Embiid produced, in turn, a two-games-to-one lead for the Sixers and the kind of rout that can swing a series. He was happy to engage in two-man games with Jimmy Butler and Redick, and no matter how good Gasol might be on the low block, no matter how strong and smart he is, if he has to chase Embiid to the three-point arc, the Sixers will have every advantage over the Raptors. There was a time when Embiid might not have been content to share the spotlight and the ball as much as he has and has to now, with so much firepower around him. But the Sixers, and he himself, are better for it. Butler had 22 points. Redick had an efficient 15. Toronto had no chance.

“The playoffs are a different sport,” Brown said. “Whatever we might have judged in the regular season, everything is just amplified now. There aren’t many teams still playing, and it’s the NBA playoffs, and it’s May, and it’s rare ground that players and coaches and teams have to play at this time of year. There’s a serious side, and there’s now a growth of a student who understands this is a different date. It’s not February. It’s May. And the rules change. The rules change a lot.”

The rules might change, but the Sixers’ approach does not and cannot. They’re a hell of a cocktail right now, and he’s the straw that stirs it. In one memorable sequence Thursday, he jumped to try to block a layup by Raptors guard Fred VanFleet, and when he landed he crumpled to the floor, and for a heartbeat everyone in the Wells Fargo Center choked a breath. But then he bounced up, trotted down the court, caught a pass from Butler – with his hands, this time – and drilled a three-pointer. “I know what I am doing,” Joel Embiid said earlier in the postseason. “I am just going to play basketball and be myself.” That might be all the Sixers need to get where they want to go, and where it looks like they can.