NBA playoffs 2026: Why familiar summer questions await the 76ers - ESPN

THE FOURTH QUARTER had yet to begin, but Joel Embiid's season was already over.

Embiid spent the final 16 minutes of Sunday's Eastern Conference semifinal Game 4 — the Philadelphia 76ers suffered a 30-point series-ending beatdown by the New York Knicks — watching from the bench inside Xfinity Mobile Arena.

Embiid, the 76ers and their fans have grown used to disappointing endings: Kawhi Leonard's four-bounce game winner in 2019. A Game 7 home loss to the Atlanta Hawks in 2021. A Game 6 home loss against the Boston Celtics in 2023. But amid the calamity that has followed this franchise since Embiid made his NBA debut in October 2016, few stretches can match the wild swings of Philadelphia's past two weeks:

On April 26, Embiid returned less than three weeks after an emergency appendectomy, only for the 76ers to get routed by the Celtics to fall behind 3-1 in the first round.

On May 2, Philadelphia ripped off its third consecutive win — capping what was perhaps the best playoff stretch of Embiid's career — to become the fourth lower-seeded team in NBA history to rally from down 3-1 to win a series.

On Sunday, with Embiid looking more like the version of himself that struggled through the first four games against Boston, Philadelphia was swept by New York, including two emphatic losses on the 76ers' home court. (Embiid missed Game 2 because of right hip and ankle injuries.)

«At times it's OK to say that the other team was just better,» Embiid said after the loss. «Tonight, they made every shot, they made every single play, we didn't make shots.»

It was the second time the 2023 NBA Most Valuable Player found himself swept out of the playoffs, the latest gut punch to a superstar and a franchise that have experienced plenty over