No player carries a greater burden into the first round of the NBA playoffs than 76ers star Joel Embiid

Even before this latest Philadelphia 76ers experiment really began showing signs of dysfunction, Hall of Famers Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley were already lobbing criticisms at All-Star center Joel Embiid.

“We’re telling you, you can be great,” O’Neal said on the postgame NBA on TNT broadcast following Embiid’s 22 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in 31 minutes of a Dec. 10 win over the Denver Nuggets. “You ain’t playing hard enough. Twenty-two ain’t enough to get you to the next level. Do you want to be great, or do you want to be good? If you want to be good, keep doing 22 points. You want to be great, give me 28, give me 30. You want to be great, watch Giannis [Antetokounmpo]. He wants to be great.”

Barkley concurred, excluding Embiid from a list of dominant offensive forces that included Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Luka Doncic, despite dubbing the Sixers star “the toughest player in the league to match up with.” It may have been an odd time to deliver the message, but it proved prescient and representative of what most people who have seen the ebbs and flows of Embiid’s career believe: The guy can be the Hakeem Olajuwon of this generation, but he finds too many ways to take himself out of games.

There can be no hiding in Philadelphia’s first-round series against the rival Boston Celtics, especially with All-Star teammate Ben Simmons sidelined for the foreseeable future with a knee injury. There is only one way the Simmons-less Sixers can beat Boston, and that is with Embiid playing at an MVP-caliber level for the 76ers, who are +300 to win the series against the Celtics at BetMGM.

Look no further than the first game following O’Neal and Barkley’s comments as evidence. Embiid accepted the criticism, telling reporters at the time, “I do think they’re right. I think I need to be more aggressive and just look to impose myself and look to dominate.” The 26-year-old 7-footer responded with one of his best games of the season, a 38-point, 13-rebound, six-assist effort in a 115-109 victory against the Celtics.

It was everything you could ever want from Embiid. He owned the paint on both ends. He drew double-teams, scoring through weaker ones with fleet footwork and otherwise finding wide-open shooters and cutters. Defensively, he deterred ball-handlers and roll men from attacking the rim, often on the same play.

Then, he returned to varying levels of commitment, a habit exacerbated by frequent injuries. His next game against Boston might have counted as the worst of this campaign if not for a zero-point outing on 11 shots in 32 minutes of a November loss to the Toronto Raptors. Against the Celtics on Feb. 1, Embiid made his first shot — a post-up on the first possession of the game — and missed his next 10, eight of which came from outside of 10 feet. Displaying a startling lack of interest, coupled with questionable conditioning, he finished with 11 points, five rebounds and a single assist against four turnovers in 24 minutes of a blowout.

So, which Embiid will we see to start the playoffs? Odds are we see both, so the better question is: Can Embiid shoulder the load necessary to beat a superior Celtics team four times in a seven-game series?

That depends on how willing and able he is to take the pounding in the paint. Embiid has been limited in Orlando by ankle and hand injuries, but when healthy he is the game’s most dominant post presence. He leads the NBA in post-up possessions and points by a wide margin. Only Jokic is within 150 points of him. And Embiid will face a Boston team that features a trio of centers with either less strength, athleticism or experience than him. This is an opportunity for him to feast, and Philadelphia is fully aware of that.

“We have the most dominant big man in the game, using Joel on the block and having him go to work,” Sixers wing Tobias Harris told reporters on Sunday. “That’s about all the intel I can give you right now.”

That’s all the intel you need. And Boston knows it. The Celtics do everything in their power to keep Embiid from working on the block, and he has been far too willing to acquiesce to what the defense has given him:

Embiid finished the regular season shooting 12-for-18 from inside 8 feet against Boston and 3-for-17 from everywhere else on the floor. The Celtics beg him to shoot from mid-range and beyond. They double team him as soon as he puts the ball on the court, forcing careless turnovers when he starts too far from the basket and loses sight of the action, and they send even more defenders the closer he gets to the rim.

The obvious solution for the Sixers is to get the ball to Embiid as close to the block as possible. That’s where he does the most damage — both as a scorer and a facilitator — and makes the fewest mistakes:

The more aggressive Embiid is in the post, the more attention he will draw from the Celtics. Whether he maintains that aggression depends on the support of his teammates. Concerns abound for both getting him the ball and scoring off him. The potential for conceding defeat in the face of so heavy a burden is high, especially for a team that seems so close to waving the white flag on the season and coach Brett Brown. Major offseason moves may await on the other side of an early playoff exit. Embiid might embrace them.

Gone is Simmons, the team’s best passer. Second-year starting point guard Shake Milton has thrown all of 14 assists to Embiid in his career. Wings Tobias Harris and Josh Richardson have both been average pick-and-roll ball-handlers this season. These are not ideal complements, but Embiid is strong enough to bully his way into a position no passer could miss. What happens next is of greater concern. If Boston commits fully to double-teaming Embiid, Philadelphia’s wings have to knock down shots. Except, their best shooters this season — Milton, Furkan Korkmaz and Alec Burks — are on the wrong side of mismatches defensively.

Embiid’s success will primarily depend on Harris and Richardson. Can they draw enough attention to allow Embiid to go to work in the paint, and can they make Boston pay when Embiid becomes the focal point?

None of it matters if Embiid is not fully engaged on offense. And only then will it matter if he makes the same commitment defensively. His habit of roaming from the rim does not convey to that end. Embiid likes to sag way off the ball-handler on switches, often giving shooters the same space other teams offer him. But Boston’s array of playmakers — Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward and Marcus Smart — are some of the game’s best pull-up shooters, all too happy to avoid attacking Embiid.

Embiid has the athleticism to challenge a ball-handler and recover onto his man, disrupting entire possessions. But expending so much energy on both sides of the ball will be especially taxing for a player who averaged fewer than 30 minutes per game in a season full of fits and starts — more so without Simmons’ All-Defensive abilities limiting the number of attacks. The great big men respond with their backs against the proverbial wall and literal backboard. If Embiid wants to be considered among them — and if the Sixers have any hope of challenging their rivals — he cannot fold under the weight of that pressure.

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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

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