Poor Joel Embiid. The gigantic colossus didn’t feel well — a fever, a cough, whatever it was. He was under the weather, and everything is harder when you’re sick. Which must have made all the Dobermans nipping at him, dodging in for a bite here or there, much less pleasant, surely. The crowd taunting him was one thing. But the defence can’t have been fun.
But then, what was Ben Simmons’ excuse? Of all the things these Toronto Raptors do well, they guard. If there is a wellspring that unleashes their potential — not just their potential to watch Kawhi Leonard perform his brutalist ballet, night after night — it is that there is a real defence underpinning everything else.