Nick Nurse Believes Joel Embiid Got Away With a Lot in Game 1

Going into Game 1 of the first-round playoff series between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Toronto Raptors, the visiting head coach Nick Nurse knew his team

Going into Game 1 of the first-round playoff series between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Toronto Raptors, the visiting head coach Nick Nurse knew his team would have its hands full with Sixers big man Joel Embiid.

As Embiid has become one of the NBA's most dominant players, Nurse and the Raptors planned to give everything they got on the defensive end as they know you can only slow Embiid down -- but not fully stop him.

"We’re going to have a lot of schemes and a lot of plans, and a lot of people are going to cover him," said Nurse before Saturday's game. 

"I think that’s where we always start. We’ll start going down through the schemes as we can. Some will work, some won’t. Some will have a little bit longer life, and some won’t have any life. Sometimes just changing for the sake of change, but there’s gonna be a lot of guys that see time guarding him. We don’t really have a guy to look him in the eye. So, there’s going to be a lot of different guys trying to limit his touches and make everything he does as hard as we possibly can over the course of the game."

As expected, the Raptors sent a lot of defenders in Embiid's direction to try and slow down the MVP candidate in Game 1. On the stat sheet, the Raptors were successful. In 37 minutes of action, Embiid drained just five of his 15 shots from the field. 

Although Embiid collected nine points via the free-throw line, the star center wasn't the Sixers' leading scorer for once. In fact, other than the veteran small forward Danny Green, Embiid scored the fewest points out of the rest of the starting five with just 19.

Despite taking away Embiid's average of over 30 points per game, Raptors head coach Nick Nurse felt the star center still got away with many offensive fouls. After the game, the veteran head coach voiced his frustrations.

Nurse Sounds Off

"We’ve got to believe that if we’re legal defensively that they're going to call those," said Nurse after the game. "Like we had a couple of times where we beat him to the spot and he bulled us right over, and they just let him lay it in. I don't care if you're 5-foot-11 and 160 pounds. If you beat him to the spot and he runs over, it's a foul."

Embiid got called for his fair share of fouls on Saturday night. While he had just two fouls going into the fourth quarter, he collected three more in his final nine minutes on the court and nearly fouled out for the rest of the game.

"I thought he threw three or four elbows to the face," Nurse continued. "He got called for one. I mean, we're gonna stand in there. We just need, if we’re legal defensively, then we’ve got to have them called or we don't have a chance, period. Nobody can guard that guy if they’re just gonna let him run you over time and time again. We're gonna stand in there, and we'll see if we don't get a few more elbows to the face calls and a few more beat him to the spot calls."

With Game 1 behind them, the Raptors are looking forward to having an opportunity to bounce back on Monday night when they meet with the Sixers once again.

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