 Run it up, do run it back, run it up, do run it back, run it back, run it up. Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Run It Back. Three of the four of us are wearing pants. Guess which one's not. Chandler, you want to speak for yourself before we move on? It's too hot in here. I wore pants yesterday. Never again. I wore pants yesterday. There's the quote of the day. And they made me stand up. They made me stand up yesterday. I'm not doing that today. No, you made it possible. I'll get you to do that. Stadium insider Shyam Shrani, he's working on his phones. I expect something great is happening. No? Okay. Possible. All right. My name is Michelle Chandler. Lou Will on the end. I'm sorry, Lou, that you have to be on the far end of this. It's all right. I prefer it. But we had some moments last night. We had some history being made last night. It was a crazy Monday in the league. But here we go. Joe L. Embied, a career high, 70. Yeah, 70. First time meeting Wemby. Sixers defeat the Spurs. 70 by 10. He did have the 70. It was 24-41 from field goal line, from field goal line from field goal, 21-23 from the free throw line with a career high 18 points. I don't even, look, there's so much being made these days of everybody, every star, their first time facing Wemby. What's it going to look like? And I know everyone says the right thing, but are guys getting extra up for these moments against this unicorn named Wemby? Because it feels like it to me. I think he definitely wanted to make a statement. He wanted to kind of impose his will. You can tell when you watched these highlights, you were watching the game, he physically just dominated the game. They were throwing double teams at him. They were throwing triple teams at him. They had no answer for him, missing shots, getting on the offensive glass. And Wemby, Wemby played so good and we're not even going to talk about him because Joel, this is one of the most dominating performances of all time. He got to the free throw line. He sized them up pretty much every, every play and in there, took the jump shot and made it was efficient. But yeah, I think there was definitely a little extra juice here. Yeah, also the career high 18 rebounds. Come on. It was an insane performance. The fact that Will's never done this is now just him and Michael Jordan and this company is insane. And Joel just keeps continuing to have games like this. We're going to be talking about a possible back to back situation of an MVP here. He deserves it. He's absolutely dominating. And this was a hell of a game from him. And you know, when it comes to Wemby, that's not a unique experience for him. Every top rookie is going to be attacked because we want to see what you're made of. We want to see who you are. And unfortunately, it had to be him last night to get that get a lot of that 70 piece, but all rookies, especially the top draft picks with a lot of hype coming in, the guys who feel like they're the superstars that are the pillars of the league, they're going to test you. They're going to check your temperature and see what you're made of. And so this was definitely a statement for Wemby. And this is one of the few matches for him. That's going to, it's going to be bad because the physicality is just he can't match that, right? He's got the skill. He's got the ISO. He's got the, you know, the offensive rebound, go down, shoot the three over him. But when it comes, there's nobody in the, in the league that can guard Joelle and be one on one with that kind of body, with that kind of presence in the paint. So this is just a mismatched nightmare for Wemby. I'm in the spurs. You know, Zach Collins, the, you know, the double team, triple team, they had no answer. I mean, they tried. They didn't really try. They never gave up. Try. They tried, but man, he was on another level. That was, it was kind of ridiculous. It was fun to watch. I'm not going to lie. John's your biggest takeaway watching that game last night from the bead. I thought it was absolutely unbelievable, uh, his performance. And I had a funny story that I heard during the fourth quarter when the game was going on, Joel and B started to take his shoes off. And once someone on the bench told Joelle and B that the record, the franchise record is 68 points, he started putting his shoes back on and said, let's go break this record. And he didn't do his normal pregame routine either before the game last night. So something was definitely a little different about him last night going into the game and the way he's performed this year, clearly right now, one of the MVP for owners, if not the MVP for runner, but if he misses eight more games this season, he could be eliminated from winning an MVP award. And so that is going to be something interesting to monitor. But this six year organization, Joel and B, they're playing for the playoffs. He knows he's been MVP already. He's been all NBA. He's been all star. He's got a bunch of accolades, scoring champion back to back years. He wants to win a championship in Philadelphia. They know keeping him healthy is the most important thing for April, May and June. I bet whatever his routine was before last night, that's what he's doing. There's a new routine. There is a new pregame routine. Right. Like how different could it have been? It's like, by the way, the only needing to miss eight more games to be out is that's not a lot of games. That's tough too, because when I think of this season and the season he's had, I don't feel like he's missed that much time. So this new rule implemented, it's going to hurt. And I guarantee you, Joel knows that and he's going to want that MVP. He wants that on his resume. He deserves it. And if he does play enough games, the MVP is his for the taken. We're trying everything. We're trying to end the season tournament. You're trying to put in regulations for guys to play a certain amount of games. Just shortening the season. You shorten the season to 65 games. You get the atmosphere that you got from the end season tournament and you give them an opportunity to play at a high level. Some of these games, I understand what this is about. But just short the season. Think about if Joel plays 64 games and Tatum plays 66. He gets the one in the MVP. Right. That's stupid. And now he's playing in game just because he's at the quota of the game. Like, when he's playing in games, he'll fade it. If you're telling a guy, you know, you got to go out there and you can't you can't afford to miss eight more games to get the MVP. Maybe he's banged up. Maybe he's sick. Maybe he's going through whatever he's going through. Now you have a guy that's going out there giving you a half a product instead of the games that you want to see him play at a high level. Your miss could have the reverse effect where if he is now trying to grind through injuries and playing and that gets worse. It's that happened because he's trying to meet the quota for the MVP. But do you think a guy like Joel Embiid, who's already won the award, would do that? I think so, too, because most people in the NBA, they say who's the best part of the NBA? They say Jokic and that and Joel hates that. And he knows he has to and he wants to. He thinks he's better than him. He thinks he's the best part of the NBA. He told us he told him that he's the best player in the league after that game. We say all types of things after a game. It's emotional. It's emotional right after games. Everybody says something. Joel warns the MVP. So that means he can't miss eight more games unless it's something serious. He's playing that minimum games. I mean, if he gets the eight and everything goes swimmingly and he's got, what, 21 straight, 30 point games so far, which is kind of insane to me. Is there an argument to be made? Because neither one of you have him as your MVP. What's the argument against it? The argument against is that the Philadelphia 76ers just weren't going to kind of take that jump. They weren't going to be as good of a team as Boston, as Milwaukee, but man, he keeps playing like this. They keep winning games. I wish the MVP of voting also would go through the playoffs. I hate that it's done before the playoffs even start because that has a huge impact on their seasons. Not just get the number one seed. If you lose first round, you shouldn't win MVP. So I feel like the voting should start later. But yeah, I mean, he keeps playing like this and they keep getting all these big games from Maxi and Tobias Harris. And they keep stacking up wins. He's going to be right there. I'll be honest. He's a victim of us being bored with excellence. You have so many of these guys that consistently they're at the top of the mountain. Sometimes we want a fresh feel. We want a fresh idea. And I think SGA has done something that we hadn't seen before. OKC is back at the top of the Western Conference since we've seen that with Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. And so we're excited for that. Embiid, he's been playing like this for so long, playing for Welfare so long. He's like, ah, it's boring. Let's get a new feel. And so I feel like he's been a victim of that. But he's playing his tail off, man. You give him credit. 30 straight 30s is nothing to sniff your nose. It is true. The NBA always is looking for that next star, right? They'd rather Anthony Edwards. They'd rather Shay. They'd rather one of these guys get it for the first time and kind of keep having this balanced star power of guys. They don't want Yogesh to win it again. They don't want Joel Embiid. But you keep putting numbers like this. You can't not vote for the guy. I feel like the example of what you guys are talking about happened in one night, even last night, because we had the 70 points. We had the, what, 62 points. And then we had Durant with 43. By the time I got to the Durant with 43, I was like, who cares? Big deal. Yeah. And then I realized, no, that is actually a big deal. The environment in the building last night was actually kind of fun. Everybody on pins and needles. Afterwards, it was a party. It was fun. Well deserved, too. Yeah. I mean, this was a historic night. We're feeling like well deserved. Literally him and Michael Jordan. And everyone knows everything Joel has went through with his injuries early on in his career. Oh gosh, no. His foot. He is happy. He is healthy. And he is absolutely ballin'. I couldn't be happier for him. I know you have a take on Pop, because he does like the psychological warfare. I don't know that people have figured out that Pop sarcastic about 97% of the time. But before the game, joking about hammering Embiid's ass. But as players, though, you know he's messing with you. Or is there a little part of you that goes, honestly, I don't even think Joel is even aware of this. That it even happened. Probably not before the game. Yeah, I love it. We're so stuck in our minds. Like we were just talking about your pre-game routine. It's structured. You're not worried about anything outside of the bubble of getting yourself prepared for a game. So if somebody even walked up to me to tell me what an opposing coach said before a game, they'd probably get cursed out immediately.