PHILADELPHIA — Dirty.
The 76ers played dirty.
They played dirty to secure a 125-114 victory over the Knicks for their first win of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday.
And they’ll have to play dirty again to even the series at two games apiece against a Knicks team adjusting to the physicality the Sixers showed to secure a victory on their home court.
“We knew what Game 3 was going to be. Come on now. We knew, especially how Game 2 ended,” Josh Hart said after the game. “We knew what it was going to be. Am I surprised? Not at all. At the end of the day, now we’ve just got to move on. I’m curious to hear [the postgame pool report from officials] though.”
Dirty is not an understatement.
While on the ground, Sixers star Joel Embiid grabbed Knicks center Mitchell Robinson by the leg as he jumped off the ground attempting to dunk in the first quarter.
Embiid was assessed a flagrant foul penalty one for unnecessary and excessive action leading to Robinson’s fall.
A number of Knicks players voiced their displeasure with the officiating on that play.
“We expect physicality,” said Donte DiVincenzo. “I think the grab that he did on Mitch was dirty.”
Embiid described the play as a knee-jerk reaction after he injured his knee similarly when Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga landed on his leg earlier this season.
“Obviously Mitchell Robinson was jumping, and I was trying to make sure he didn’t land on me,” Embiid explained after the game. “Obviously we know the history that I have with Kuminga landing on my knee, so I kind of had some flashbacks when it came down to it.
“It’s unfortunate. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody but in those situations, I have to protect myself, because I’ve been in way too many situations where I’m the recipient of the bad end of it. It was unfortunate, but physical game. They wanted to bring the physicality. We can be physical, too, and we are.”
Crew chief Zach Zarba gave an explanation why the play didn’t rise to the level of a flagrant foul penalty two in the postgame pool report.
“In that situation, the crew gets together, we go and review the foul. In this instance, the crew was unanimous along with the replay center official in Secaucus that this foul was unnecessary but did not rise to the level of a flagrant 2,” he said. “The unnecessary contact rose to the level of a flagrant 1 but we were unanimous that this did not rise to the level of excessive contact, unnecessary and excessive, which would have been a flagrant 2 ejection. That’s why we kept it a flagrant 1.”
It wasn’t the only ire-drawing play Embiid made putting a Knicks player at risk.
Head coach Tom Thibodeau also expressed frustration with a play from the first quarter, where Embiid’s knee brace clipped starting center Isaiah Hartenstein in the groin.
Asked about the flagrant foul called on Embiid, Thibodeau said: “Which one? The one they called or the one they didn’t call?
“I don’t even know. What’d they have? 33 free throws?”
Hartenstein said Embiid’s shot to his groin was incidental.
‘It’s more of there was something in his knee — his brace or something — that was sharp mostly,” he said. “I don’t think he did anything crazy flagrant. It was just something that was in his knee brace that kind of chipped me. At the end of the day, I didn’t think it was that flagrant.”
His tone changed discussing the play Embiid grabbed Robinson.
“That’s not a basketball play,” said Hartenstein. “I think that’s the take on that.”
Embiid also rammed into Robinson, drawing his third personal foul of the first half on a charging call while simultaneously dealing significant impact to the Knicks backup big man absorbing the brunt of the contact on the play.
The star Sixers big man also kicked Robinson in the groin flailing his leg out on a step-back mid-range two.
The Knicks ruled Robinson out for the remainder of the game due to a sprained left ankle at halftime. He left the arena in a walking boot after re-injuring the surgically-repaired left ankle he initially hurt on Dec. 8 against the Boston Celtics.
“He’s in his normal good mood,” Hartenstein said of Robinson after the game.
Embiid ended up with 50 points on 19 shots. He took 21 free throws. The Knicks took 19.
“Make sure he sees bodies. Don’t foul him. He had more free throws than our whole team,” said Hart. “More free throws than field goals attempted. So we gotta try to show our hands as best we can and be physical.”
Not fouling Embiid is easier said than done, especially when he’s playing a physical brand of basketball bordering on dirty.
“[You have to] kind of pull your hands back,” said Hartenstein. “They want us to be more physical, get more into them, but when they call those fouls, it’s kind of hard to do that. That’s on us. I feel like it’s a skill for a guy to be able to draw those fouls, so we have to be able to adjust to that.”
