PHILADELPHIA — The real value of MVPs isn’t just in what they do, but in what they help others do, how they make a hard game easy for their teammates.
That’s what the Nets used to have in Kevin Durant before they traded him away, and it’s what the 76ers’ Joel Embiid has grown into. It’s what wins in the playoffs, a point driven home Saturday by the Nets’ 121-101 loss to the Sixers in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series at Wells Fargo Center.
The victory only bolstered Embiid’s MVP bona fides — and gave rising Nets standout Mikal Bridges a close-up look at how tough it is to be the No. 1 player on a contender.
The Nets sent waves of bodies at Embiid, from Nic Claxton to forward Dorian Finney-Smith to backups Day’Ron Sharpe and Royce O’Neale. They blitzed Philadelphia’s star center, doubling him with various combinations in various locations. Embiid still got his, but he also helped the 76ers get theirs — wide-open look after wide-open look.
Embiid, the two-time reigning scoring champion and MVP favorite, finished with 26 points. But his gravity was so great he warped the Nets’ defensive spacing and helped the Sixers go 21-for-43 from 3-point range.
“It goes from your traditional spacing on the defensive end because you trap Embiid, now you’re rotating. Now you need another effort to stop the penetration, then go out for the rebound,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said. “It’s just giving multiple efforts. We’ve got to get that in our brain that that’s what it’s going to take. It’s not going to be traditional we got to mix things up, take some risks.”
James Harden — who forced a move from Brooklyn to Philadelphia at the 2022 trade deadline — had 23 points and 13 assists against his former team. But Harden, a former MVP himself whose presence added spice to the matchup, said Embiid’s dominance made the Nets’ jobs tougher and the Sixers’ simpler.
“It’s easy. He’s going to get his buckets no matter what, that’s just how good he is. And then, we’re making shots, we’re attacking the basket, and we just generate easier shots for us. That was a key,” Harden said. “He’s the MVP. So would you rather him scoring 40, or living with us making shots?”
The Sixers adjusted to the Nets’ scheme, playing the center a little higher so it would be hard to double him. Embiid had 10 points in the third quarter, and helped put the Nets in a 20-point hole in the fourth.
“Every single possession they just kept doubling. It didn’t matter where I was; half-court, 3-point line, post,” Embiid said with a shrug. “We took advantage of that scheme.”
The playoffs are all about adjustments, and Embiid adjusted to Vaughn’s plan while the Nets had no response.
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The Sixers did the same when they were on defense, adjusting to Bridges, the Nets’ budding star.
Durant and Kyrie Irving, also traded away by the Nets at the deadline, were proven three-level scorers, those rare stars nearly impervious to playoff game-planning.
When the Nets traded Durant, they brought back Bridges, who has been a revelation. Bridges averaged 26.1 points this season for the Nets, and had a game-high 30 Saturday. But his hometown team reminded him just how tough it is to be the leading man on a contender.
“It’s not easy being the star, or being the main guy,” Embiid said. “So as soon as we saw that, we just doubled it and got the ball out of his hands and it worked out pretty well for us.”
After Bridges tormented Tyrese Maxey and Shake Milton in the midrange for the entire first half, the Sixers doubled the ball out of his hands in the second.
“They were blitzing, so I was just trying to make the right reads, play 4-on-3 on the other end,” Bridges said. “It’s tough this series, so we’ve just got to watch film and get better and do whatever we have to do to get ready for the next game. But just learning right now.”
Bridges went into the break with 23 points, but mustered just seven on two shots after halftime.
“He had the highway in the first half, in the second half it was a traffic jam,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said.
And it’ll be up to the Nets to figure out how to clear the traffic.
“It’s on me to continue to get the ball to him,” Vaughn said, “and also continue to have pace where they’re not bogging him down and holding him and grabbing him and letting him not play with freedom of movement.”
