Joel Embiid Quotes Giannis Antetokounmpo After 76ers’ Exit: ‘Steps to Success’

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In a year in which he won his first league MVP, the result was the same for Joel Embiid.

He and the Philadelphia 76ers finished the campaign with yet another disappointing early exit from the NBA playoffs.

Embiid and the 76ers lost in blowout fashion to the Boston Celtics at TD Garden on Sunday afternoon in Game 7, 112-88. And despite it being one of the worse performances of his postseason career, he tried to have some perspective.

In his postgame press conference, he adopted Giannis Antetokounmpo’s philosophy on failure that the two-time MVP touched on following his own playoff exit in the first round a couple of weeks ago.

“For me, I just look at it as a good step,” Embiid said. “Like someone said, ‘It’s not a failure, [there’s] steps to success.'”

On a day his team needed him more than ever, Embiid came up quite small in the blowout loss. He finished with just 15 points on 5-of-18 shooting from the floor to go along with eight rebounds, two blocks and four turnovers.

It was nowhere near what anybody expected of him in the biggest game of the 76ers’ season.

Embiid has yet to make it out of the second round of the playoffs and may have had his last chance to do so with James Harden as his running mate. Harden has a player option coming up this offseason.

As for Antetokounmpo’s quote, after the Bucks were eliminated by the No. 8 seed Miami Heat in the first round, he talked about how failure is a concept that shouldn’t exist in sports.

And it’s become quite a phenomenon over the last few weeks.

While their seasons may not be considered “failures,” two out of the last three MVPs have now been bounced out of the playoffs earlier than expected. The only one still standing is Denver’s Nikola Jokić, who has led the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals.