Joel Embiid got showered with chants of “F–k Embiid,” but the 76ers say they all got screwed.
Philadelphia suffered an epic collapse in a 104-101 first-round Game 2 loss at the Garden, one that left them vehemently angered with the officiating.
The 76ers will file an official grievance with the league over the officiating in the first two games of this first-round series.
The news was first reported by ESPN, and was confirmed Monday night by The Post.
Philadelphia had a host of issues.
The Sixers had concerns over what they believed were incorrect foul calls, but the most glaring complaint was over multiple attempts to call a timeout in the waning seconds after an inbounds, right before Tyrese Maxey committed a game-changing turnover.
“Well, the first thing is obviously we … they score, we take a look at getting it in quick. You don’t get in quick. I call timeout. The referee looked right at me, ignored me,” a vexed Nick Nurse said. “Looking for Tyrese, I call timeout again. Then the whole melee started and yeah. I mean, I guess I’ve got to run out onto the floor or do something to make sure to get his attention. But I needed a timeout there to advance it, it would’ve been good, but couldn’t get it.”
Leading by five with 28 seconds left, the 76ers saw Jalen Brunson bounce in a 3-pointer.
Then they failed to get a timeout, even though video clearly showed Nurse screaming for one.
“Everybody on the floor was trying to call a timeout, myself included, Nico [Batum], coach on the sideline; but that didn’t give it to us,” Embiid said.
Embiid said he didn’t feel the need to lift Maxey’s spirits after the tough finish, and held his teammate blameless. The fault, the NBA MVP said, falls squarely on the league.
“He did his job. That’s on the league, that’s on the NBA, that’s on the freaking referees,” said Embiid.
“I hate to put the game on them, but I’m sure the (last) two-minute report is going to come out and we’re going to see what happened,” Embiid added. “Like I said, that’s unacceptable. That’s not on him. That’s not on any of us. We fought for 47 minutes and whatever, 20 seconds. For that to happen, up four, that’s not OK.”
Nurse said he never got any explanation.
“Well, there wasn’t time to talk about it. You can ask him if you want to. You saw me call timeout,” Nurse said. “I just watched the film, just to make sure. I clearly call a timeout. I didn’t see if he looked at me in the film, but I could see me clearly calling timeout twice.”
The 76ers watched Maxey turn the ball over to Josh Hart.
Donte DiVincenzo missed a 3-pointer, but the Sixers let Isaiah Hartenstein snatch the offensive rebound. DiVincenzo hit his second chance 3 for a 102-101 lead, and then Maxey drive only to get blocked by Hartenstein.
“We just got to rebound. I can’t turn the ball over. I can’t turn the ball over, I can’t lose the ball, and we gotta get the rebound,” Maxey said.
“It was a good look, I think he blocked it a little bit, got a piece of it. … It sucks. We got to put it behind us now. We got 48 hours to think about and come up with a plan to get to a win at home.”