Joel Embiid Feels Time is Already Working Against 76ers

There's a lot of basketball to be played, but Joel Embiid is feeling the urgency.

Last year, the Philadelphia 76ers only had the star guard James Harden for 21 games after they struck a mid-season trade with the Brooklyn Nets. Throughout the final stint of the 2021-2022 regular season, both Harden and Joel Embiid made it clear that the Sixers didn’t have enough time to master their on-court chemistry before the playoffs.

The 76ers didn’t have to get everything down pat to make it out of the first round as they defeated the Toronto Raptors in six games during the first round. When the first-seeded Miami Heat came to play, though, that’s where the Sixers stalled out.

After ending their season in the second round of the 2022 NBA Playoffs, the Sixers looked forward to having a full offseason with Embiid and Harden working together so they could master their chemistry. But as the team made a few critical changes to the rotation, the 76ers are finding out they are certainly still a work in progress through the first five games of the regular season.

With only one win in five matchups, the Sixers aren’t hitting the panic button, as there are still 77 games left on the schedule. However, Embiid continues to stress that the season isn’t as long as it feels — and the team needs to figure out its issues sooner than later.

“We got to play harder, man,” Embiid said following Philadelphia’s fourth loss to the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night. “We got to stick together.”

As the Sixers have struggled on defense, specifically in transition, the team recognized that many of their issues could be attributed to a lack of effort. Embiid is confident that the Sixers will find their way at some point as they identify the problems that need to be fixed. However, he doesn’t want time working against them when that finally happens.

“We’ll be fine, but we don’t have a lot of time,” Embiid finished. “We can’t waste time. It hurts to lose, it’s painful, and we just got to figure it out. We don’t have a lot of time.”

The Sixers return to the court on Friday night to face the Toronto Raptors once again. After coming up short on Wednesday, the 76ers know they have to come out with a much better effort to battle back on Friday to avoid falling into a 1-6 hole to begin the season. 

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.