The Sixers are one of the top teams in NBA 2k20 with an 89 overall squad led by Joel Embiid, who has a 91 overall rating. Embiid is tied with Karl Anthony-Towns for the highest rating as a center in the game among those currently playing. Nikola Jokic -who is also always in the argument for the top center in the NBA – comes in as an 89 overall. While all three are young talents with special and unique skills, Embiid is the most well balanced along with the greatest potential.
Embiid is a solid all-around player on both the offensive and defensive ends. His only weakness which comes with being a center is his playmaking and perimeter defense. Those grades are a D- and D+ respectively. After that, his grades quickly improve. Both his inside scoring and inside defense is at an A+ and quite possibly the best in the game. This while also having the capability to shoot outside of the paint with mid-range and three point grades at B+ and B gives Embiid the potential to be a generational talent. His IQ rating that grades his mentality and knowledge of the game is only a B+. This may be because he only started playing the game at the age of 15 when he still lived in his origin country of Cameroon.
Best Strategy with Embiid in 2k
I decided to try out an online game as the Sixers in NBA 2k20 to learn the best ways to use Joel. The main goal with Embiid is to not use up a lot of energy early on. If you do, the fatigue affects his game and his ability to win battles for rebounds in the paint. Embiid is dominant in the paint so if you want to look for him on offense don’t be like Brett Brown and let him throw up threes. Put him in the post and battle it out. While I’m not a hardcore 2k player, I’ve gotten pretty good over the years at being able to fake people out and not have a lot of contested shots.
On the defensive end, Embiid only improves. He is one of if not the best inside defender in the game and is a strong rebounder. The only weakness on the defensive end was that he can sometimes have trouble covering stretch bigs especially on the pic and roll. Joel was facing up against Brook Lopez and Milwaukee. In the first 3 minutes, my opponent hit 2 three pointers with Lopez by feeding him off of the pic and roll. Some of that could have been my fault but Embiid was certainly more exposed in those situations.
Overall, Embiid is someone you will face off against. The Sixers are a commonly used team and if you want to learn more about their roster, you can check out the complete Sixers team guide for 2k20 from the preseason. Anyways, let’s get into the game anaylsis.
Game Analysis
Milwaukee, besides LeBron James and the Lakers, is probably the top team to use in the game. The Bucks have shooters everywhere along with Giannis Antetokounmpo and it doesn’t help that my opponent was difficult to play against. I came out with a game-plan to feed Embiid heavily. He struggled in the 1st Half and despite scoring 12 points was 4-11 from the floor and had 1 rebound. Embiid normally leads the team in boards but because he was covering Lopez a lot on the perimeter, he wasn’t able to crash the glass as much.
But to start the second half, Embiid went on a tear. He scored on the first possession then on a fastbreak hit a three and all of sudden the game was tied up and Joel was up to 17 points. Despite a solid performance in the 2nd Half, the Sixers were unable to keep up with Giannis who finished with 19 points and 7 rebounds. Milwaukee prevailed at home 45-36.
The opponent caught on early that Embiid was getting the ball a lot. As the game went on, it became more and more difficult to keep up when you only had 1 primary scoring option. The Sixers bench was also extremely disappointing. To try and prevent the Bucks bench from going unstoppable, Al Horford was moved to the bench to be a reserve for Matisse Thybulle. Horford finished with a plus-minus of (-11) which summarized the poor bench performance.
Despite a poor team performance, Embiid finished with:
- 23 points
- 3 rebounds
- 1 block
- 9-20 (45%) from the field
- 1-1 3PT
- 4-6 FT
- +/- (-3)
Not too bad but the big thing was he was fatigued for a large portion of the game. Check out the final stat line below.
