Sixers vs. Raptors: Sixers once again need to reinvent themselves around an injured Joel Embiid | David Murphy

TORONTO — A half hour after it ended, the gravity of the opportunity they squandered became clear. Joel Embiid trudged into a makeshift conference room at Scotiabank Arena with a black athletic wrap on his hand and a blank expression on his face. He spoke in a tone that we have heard before: distant, downtrodden, tinged with a hint of spite.110-102 loss to the Raptors

During a lengthy pregame shooting session 90 minutes before Saturday’s tip, Embiid’s stroke looked confident, steady, smooth despite the wrap around his thumb. But in the game itself, he looked suspiciously like a player protecting an injury, his attention divided between the things he needed to do to win a playoff basketball game and the realization that he was not fully equipped to execute them.

And therein lies the Sixers’ biggest defeat. Not often does a team enter a Game 4 with both a 3-0 series lead and a dire need to reinvent itself. But that is where they were on Saturday. They knew Embiid’s thumb had become an issue that would likely linger for however long the postseason lasted. They knew that they could give themselves a week of lead time to heal and prepare. They knew that the top-seeded Heat had given them a gift with a Game 3 loss to the Hawks on Friday night.

Look, everybody on the court is human, and the guys in the other jerseys are in the NBA for a reason, too. It is difficult enough to win four out of seven games against the same opponent, let alone win four straight. But the Sixers didn’t even try to deny what everybody watching had seen.

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