Daily News | ‘He’s a savant’: How Joel Embiid’s basketball IQ keyed another MVP-caliber season
Joel Embiid was in the midst of pouring in 52 points, powering and gliding and torquing his body to sink an astonishing 20 out of 25 shots.stretch of a 103-101 win last week
“He’s a savant, and he watches,” Rivers said of Embiid. “Guys like that, they’re pretty smart. It’s hard to fool them.” That allows Embiid to face the basket with a more complete vision of the court to attack off the dribble — resulting in buckets or fouls drawn, often at the same time — or distribute without needing to throw the ball “through hands,” he said. Before facing the Sixers in recent weeks, Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd and Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse both mentioned, unprompted, how difficult it is to send an additional defender to Embiid when he isolates from that area.
Sometimes, Embiid will catch the ball and make a decisive move. Other times, he will toy with the defense by baiting the extra body to drift over with the intention of passing, a strategy Rivers said Embiid has “never done before in his career” and now makes him a “graduate”-level facilitator.
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