Raptors Vent about Joel Embiid's Aggressive Play & Frustrating Whistle

The Toronto Raptors were unhappy with how physical Joel Embiid played Saturday night and how often the Philadelphia 76ers got the benefit of the whistle

Aaron Rose | Apr 17, 2022

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The Toronto Raptors are going to need some help.

Without anyone on the roster taller than 6-foot-9, the Raptors don't have one of those big bodies that they can just throw at Philadelphia 76ers' superstar Joel Embiid to defend one-on-one. There's no Marc Gasol running out of the tunnel and checking in whenever Embiid takes the court. Instead, Toronto's game plan involves timing, positioning, and, hopefully, a few foul calls.

Toronto's defense on Embiid was by no means perfect Saturday night in Game 1. Embiid got deep post position on multiple occasions, forcing the Raptors to double team him right under the rim, but there were at least a handful of occasions where good positioning should have favored the Raptors.

"We’ve got to believe that if we’re legal defensively that they're going to call those," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said post-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 finished the game with five personal fouls, but a few more early ones could have changed things a little bit. He was consistently the aggressor both legally and, at times, illegally Saturday, twice hitting Raptors players in the face and forcing Khem Birch to get evaluated for a concussion. In the fourth quarter, he accidentally stepped on Barnes' foot, forcing him to leave the game with a left ankle sprain.

"I thought he threw three or four elbows to the face, he got called for one. OK. I mean, we're gonna stand in there. We just need, if we’re legal defensively, then we’ve got to have ‘em called or we don't have a chance, period," Nurse said. "Nobody can guard that guy if they’re just gunna let him run you over time and time again."

Both Fred VanVleet and Chris Boucher battled early foul trouble before eventually collecting their sixth and exiting the game in the fourth. When VanVleet left, he had some words with the officials that quickly led to a technical.

"I know how to defend without fouling. I'm not going to sit up here and say that I didn't foul anybody tonight because that would not be true. But at the end of the day, I think it's a line. You got to try to walk to be aggressive and make plays on the ball but also adjust to the way the whistle’s blowing," VanVleet said. "They were really locked in and laser-eyed vision tonight to make some of those calls and you gotta live with it."

The Raptors will certainly adjust, it's what they've been known for since Nurse took over in 2018. That aggressive defense will certainly persist and if the whistle sways the other way in Game 2, Toronto should have s good shot to bounce right back.

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