Giglio: 'Love' that Nick Nurse sat Embiid for 'uncharacteristic' bad play

Nick Nurse admitted to benching Joel Embiid for a minute in the fourth quarter of Tuesday's Game 5 win, a move Joe Giglio "loved" saying that is something that the previous Sixers' head coaches would not have done.

"I love that Nick Nurse did that last night," Giglio said on Wednesday's 94WIP Midday Show. "To me, that is coaching. That is something I don't believe Doc Rivers would've ever done. I don't believe Brett Brown would have done it."

After two consecutive sloppy passes by Joel Embiid, the second of the two leading to a Miles McBride easy layup with 6:15 to go in the game giving the Knicks a three-point advantage , Nurse replaced Embiid with Nic Batum. With 5:03 remaining in the game, Embiid returned for Kyle Lowry.

Nurse admitted the decision to sit Embiid was not health or rest related, but due to his stretch of bad turnovers.

"Really, really, really uncharacteristic stretch of plays," Nurse said of Embiid's play leading to his quick benching. "I felt like we just had to grab him, something, at least try to talk to him, give him a minute or two to settle down."

Embiid finished the game with nine turnovers, but still managed to score 19 points, grab 16 boards and dish out 10 assists. And on the defensive end, Embiid came up huge in overtime and finished with four blocks. He became the first player since David Robinson and Tim Duncan to have a 15/10/10/4 (block) playoff game .

The Sixers, thanks to seven points in the final 29 seconds of regulation from Tyrese Maxey—who finished the game with 46 on 17-30 shooting—were able to come back and win in overtime setting up a Game 6 Thursday night in Philadelphia.