Sixers looked disjointed in Joel Embiid's first game back. Where do they go now?

So much of the questioning about the Sixers series with the Boston Celtics centered around the potential return of Joel Embiid from his appendix surgery on April 9.

The Sixers, outwardly, pleaded ignorance, stating that they didn't know if or when he may return, or how he may be able to perform if he did. There was a sense of uncertainty, which isn't uncommon when it comes to an Embiid injury.

So when he surprisingly returned Sunday for Game 4, the wonderment was how the Sixers were going to handle it. After all, they hadn't seen him on the floor with them since April 6, and a lot had changed since then, most notably being down 2-1 in a playoff series. Could Embiid seamlessly come back and help a team that had battled so hard in two of the first three games? Was the team ready for his return and such a change to the playoff system Nick Nurse had set in place? It certainly didn't appear so, as they got tortured to the tune of 128-96 to now trail the best-of-seven series 3-1 with Game 5 in Boston on Tuesday.

You know who was ready for Embiid's comeback? The Celtics. It didn't take long to see that they were as excited about his return as the Sixers' fans at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Sunday. After winning the opening tap, they ran a pick and roll right at Embiid and turned that into a dunk. They ran at him the next three times down the floor. They tested his mobility and, ultimately, diced the Sixers in every which way, mostly from the three-point line where they went 24-for-53 (45.3 percent) and on the offensive glass, where they grabbed 14 of them that led to 18 second chance points. Early in the game, the Celtics had grabbed eight offensive rebounds on 18 missed shots.

While the thought was that his return would give a boost to a Sixers team who desperately needed one if they were going to even the series, it was the exact opposite. Incredibly, Embiid, who said he went up and down the floor for the first time since his surgery a couple days ago, played 34 minutes and collected 26 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. But the boost in energy wasn't infused. The guard tandem of Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe were silenced for much of the game, and any feeling of goodness from the previous two games was nowhere to be found.

"They were more aggressive, quicker, wanted to chase them (rebounds) down more than we did," said Nurse. "We just didn't seem like we could get bodies on them. Couldn't run down any long ones. It was a huge problem.

"It didn't seem like any matchup could guard anybody one-on-one tonight. I think a lot of that was just, we had them pushed out and bottled up and physical and really of rhythm a couple games, and there was none of that tonight. What is it? I don't know why we couldn't block out better or rebound better or move better on defense or whatever. We just seemed to move a step behind energy-wise. 

"Whatever it was, we were a half step behind on everything, even the shots that weren't going in, we were a half step behind on those, too. It felt a little bit like Game 1 (also a 32-point loss), all the sudden we jumped out of character real quick. It's hard to watch and hard to explain, too."

The easiest explanation is this: The Celtics are the better team, whether the Sixers have Embiid or not. The bigger question is this: Are the Sixers a better team with Embiid in the lineup right now?

Maxey got three shots in the first half against Boston on Sunday. All in the organization know that can't happen, including Maxey. Edgecombe seemed like a lost rookie, which is understandable to an extent. Paul George seemed an afterthought on offense and the team allowed nine offensive rebounds and collected none. And while Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were struggling with 4-for-16 shooting combined in the first half, the Celtics had an 18-point lead because reserve Payton Pritchard was on fire and Boston played a team brand of ball, on both ends of the floor. The Sixers seemed to be searching for who they are as much as they were for defensive rebounds, and having about as much success.

"That can't happen. That's on me," said Maxey of his three first-half shots. "I was playing within the flow of the game and it kind of just happened that way. It wasn't meant to happen that way but that's on me. We can't win basketball games with that happening and I take full responsibility. 

"They just kind of moved us around, pushed us around. They got to whatever spot they wanted to get to. There was no resistance and that's unacceptable, that's not our brand of basketball that we play. Even our first game, they made some shots and stuff but we were pretty physical. They just kind of walked to their spots and got whatever they wanted. Then we got to the position where we felt like we should over help and then once you start over helping, this team is not a team you should start over helping on. You really have to guard your yard."

It's a pick-your-poison type of situation. Tatum and Brown can drive to the basket and score with the best in the NBA. But they are also so good at kicking out to openings if help is shown in the lane. As much as you never want to give anything up, you almost wonder if the Sixers would be better off battling layups with the lone defender rather than leaving players open on the perimeter due to helping on the drives.

And then, with all the film study and attention to detail that Nurse and the team has talked about during this series, was Embiid being implemented into the lineup a disruption to that? I'm all about having the best players on the floor as much as possible, but does the team respond well to him being back?

"I think we went inside a few times and then hit him on a roll, hit him on a pop," said Maxey of playing with Embiid again. "It wasn't intentional, it was just kind of the flow of the game, how the game was going. Even Joel was like 'You have to force your way into the game.' PG at halftime was just, he doesn't really get fired up, and he was just saying 'How do you get three shots? That's impossible.' That's not a winning pedigree for us. I take responsibility. 

"It's definitely a little different. He's [Embiid] a different player. Different player than (Adem) Bona, a different player than Drum (Andre Drummond). It's definitely different. We did a couple different things tonight and we just didn't execute them well. It's definitely different. I think all our bigs are different, defensively for sure. Offensively, too, but defensively as well."

As comebacks go, it wasn't at all what the fans, team, coaches or Embiid envisioned.

"I'm just happy. Bummed about the loss," Embiid said. "I feel like we had a pretty good chance especially the way we started. But then offensive rebounding and threes and me and everybody else not being able to make shots and them hitting every single three. That's not a good combination. 

"We know what we didn't do well, obviously. I think they believe in what they believe, which is shoot a lot of threes and they believe they can make enough of it to win every single game. Tonight, offensive rebounding hurt us a lot. Threes equal long rebounds and I feel like we keep coming in, instead, we should go to our men and check them before looking at the ball. 

"That's an adjustment. We've had that problem all season so we have to do a better job. Just going with the mentality of one at a time, take care of some of the mistakes we made today. We got to do a better job of making shots. We didn't do that in Game 1 and then we came back Game 2 and we made a lot of them. Just take care of offensive rebounding, not giving them second chance points. Try to contest it even more than we did tonight."

The fact that Embiid is contesting at all is so surprising. To compare, three or four examples of players having an appendectomy during the season had them returning in the five to six week mark. Yet, here he was 17 days post surgery. Yet another playoff and another injury. They almost seem to unfairly go hand-and-hand with Embiid.

"It's been tough, but that's life," Embiid said. "Even when it happens, you look at it and like, playoffs are here. I feel pretty good going into the playoffs and all of the sudden this thing happens. Some things you can't control. What am I going to do? Cry about it? No. Just take it on and move on and try to do the best job possible to try and give yourself the best chance to come back and play.

"When you've been through it so much, you kind of have to balance yourself with, okay, this is another thing, you've got to move on. It hurts. It feels like it's every single time. It sucks, but you probably go through a couple days where you feel bad for yourself and it's right back to it. Are you going to give up or are you going to try to come back as early as possible? So, it sucks but you can't give up. You've got to keep pushing and not feel bad for yourself and just take it on and try to do the best job possible."

And that is exactly where the Sixers find themselves in this series, also.