Inside Sixers: Joel Embiid’s afterglow, an Eagles fan’s lament and more from a recent surge

As Joel Embiid soaked his feet in an ice bucket inside a mostly cleared-out 76ers’ locker room, a FaceTime call arrived.

“We never want to hear [bleep] from you ever again,” Embiid told personal trainer Drew Hanlen, with Tyrese Maxey also leaning into the screen to grin and gloat.

Nearly an hour following his career-best and historic 70-point performance against the San Antonio Spurs, Embiid lingered in the afterglow. He “locked into” the end of Karl-Anthony Towns’ 62-point effort against the Charlotte Hornets, quipping, “I hope he gets me” before teammate KJ Martin retorted from the other side of the room: “I don’t!” When Maxey suggested Embiid should have gotten to 80 points, his big man lamented that, had he known during the game that it was the anniversary of basketball idol Kobe Bryant’s 81, “I would have gone for it.”

And just as Maxey started to leave the locker room, he hollered, “Process! Love, bro.”

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid channels idol Kobe Bryant as he scores 70 and breaks Wilt Chamberlain’s Sixers scoring record

That scene stamped a memorable start to the second half of the Sixers’ regular season, when Embiid swiftly stole the hype from prized rookie Victor Wembanyama’s first Philly visit. The reigning NBA Most Valuable Player’s offensive clinic also pushed the Sixers’ winning streak to six, and kept them a half-game behind the second-place Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference standings at 29-13 despite a multitude of injuries and illnesses affecting their depth.

Here are some other behind-the-scenes moments that peppered a generally celebratory past two weeks:

When the Houston Rockets visited the Sixers for an MLK Day matinee, coach Ime Udoka called Embiid “one of the guys I’m closest to in the league.”

Udoka spent the 2019-20 season as an assistant on Brett Brown’s staff. He and Embiid initially clicked because of their shared African heritage, with Udoka calling Embiid “little brother” because the MVP’s home country of Cameroon is right next to Udoka’s Nigeria. Udoka also had a background working with former All-NBA big men Tim Duncan and LaMarcus Aldridge with the Spurs, providing immediate credibility.

And Udoka was willing to be direct with Embiid, especially when the coach noticed him “messing around in shootarounds and not always focusing.”

“I told him, straight up, he has as much or more talent than those guys [Duncan and Aldridge],” Udoka said. “But it’s a level of consistency. And so I was pretty honest with him.”

The bond between coach and player then deepened during the 2020 pandemic isolation period, when Embiid and Udoka went through secluded workouts “day after day … for hours” inside the gym at former Sixers minority owner Michael Rubin’s home to prepare to return to play inside the Orlando bubble. They have remained in touch since, with Udoka attending Embiid’s wedding last summer.

And evidence exists that Udoka’s influence has stuck with Embiid. When describing Sixers practices and shootarounds, coach Nick Nurse said Embiid’s intensity sets the tone by allowing teammates to simulate gamelike schemes at a higher level than at previous stops.

“He knows there’s a lot of stuff coming at him [defensively],” Nurse said last month. “So he gets everybody to a level of concentration and speed.”

A frequent postgame locker-room visitor is Nico Batum’s son, Ayden, a curly-haired 7-year-old with personality.

Following last week’s win over Denver, he excitedly hugged a Nuggets jersey signed by Reggie Jackson, Nico’s former teammate with the Los Angeles Clippers who also became close with Ayden. In Monday’s video of Sixers teammates dousing Embiid with water (for a second time) upon entering the locker room, Ayden is the kiddo in the hat and Big Energy chain.

» READ MORE: Dominick Barlow’s ‘unique’ journey: From a stint with St. Joe’s Prep to the NBA with the Spurs

Yet Ayden’s personal star turn came a little more than a week ago, when he grabbed a basketball and began shooting it into a laundry bin following the Sixers’ Jan. 12 win over the Sacramento Kings. Reserve center Mo Bamba eventually sneaked up and swatted one attempt from behind, prompting professional agitator Patrick Beverley to yell, “Teach ‘em early, Mo!”

But Ayden kept shooting. And kept draining. And kept scooting back, closer and closer to Bamba’s locker.

After one final make, Ayden turned to Bamba and rubbed his forearm (think Tobias Harris’ three-point celebration) in the center’s face on his way out the door.

The NFL playoffs are a reminder that an NBA team is a melting pot of people from all over the country (and world). Last Monday’s postgame scene — which fell in the middle of the NFL’s wild-card round — was filled with trash talk.

Maxey, who hails from the Dallas area, and Martin, who roots for the Cowboys because his father grew up in the area, were upset about their team’s face-plant against the Green Bay Packers. Danuel House Jr., who is from Houston, gloated about the Texans’ dominant win over the Cleveland Browns. Embiid randomly interrupted the cross-room chatter with a “Go, Packers!”

And North Philly native Marcus Morris Sr. was ready to watch the Eagles, who were set to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a few hours. Two days after that disastrous loss, however, Morris did not want to take part in any football talk as he sat for a post-practice interview session.

“Don’t ask me no Eagles questions,” he said.

Much of NBA travel life — including charter flights, five-star hotels, and police-escorted bus rides — is top of the line. But sometimes teams wind up in randomly secluded, less-than-glamorous locations for practices and morning shootarounds.

The Sixers were at an Orlando high school ahead of Friday’s win over the Magic. The gym was a generally suitable location for a quick game-planning workout — except the floor did not have an NBA three-point line.

» READ MORE: Sixers highs and lows at midseason: Most underrated player, biggest disappointment, best win, and more

So before the team arrived, equipment operations manager Joe Fichetola used a tape measure and duct-style tape to create a makeshift arc by hand.

File that under “other duties as assigned.”

At the end of last weekend’s Orlando-Charlotte back-to-back, Martin was in search of a postgame snack for the flight home.

Naturally, he wanted Bojangles, the fast-food chicken and biscuits chain headquartered in Charlotte, N.C.

One problem: The location that would deliver to the Spectrum Center was apparently … out of chicken.

“How?” Martin said.

House after getting booed for taking a shot in the closing minutes of Embiid’s 70-point game: “I don’t care nothing about that. We won the game. Team happy. Jo did something magical tonight. I’m going home happy as hell.”