Mikal Bridges absolutely drilled Joel Embiid in the stomach and everyone knows it was intentional

In the second quarter of Monday night’s 137-98 beatdown, Mikal Bridges was fighting over a screen that Joel Embiid set for Maxey. On the way through, Bridges extended his arm directly into Embiid’s midsection and left the seven-footer doubled over in pain.

Yes, it was the same midsection where Joel Embiid had an organ surgically removed three weeks ago. Funny how that works out.

Mikal Bridges dirty play on Joel Embiid:

Joel Embiid suffers from a pain in the mid-section, after Mikal Bridges collides with him. Kelly Oubre Jr. scores the And-1 pic.twitter.com/CKnnp8ruuU

— MrBuckBuck (@MrBuckBuckNBA) May 5, 2026

That was dirty. There’s no debating it.

Embiid was easily avoidable and Bridges made sure he hit his body anyways. Just call it how everyone sees it.

Bridges doesn’t have a reputation as a dirty player and he’s a former All-Defensive First Team selection who knows exactly how to navigate screens without throwing elbows into someone’s surgical recovery zone.

He knew what he was doing. The arm extension was deliberate. He targeted the area where Embiid is most vulnerable right now and Embiid felt every bit of it.

Argue with your couch. It was dirty.

Fans immediately called it out as a dirty play and they were right. Embiid has a negative history with the Knicks that goes back years. There’s bad blood between him and that organization. Bridges putting some extra into that screen fight was calculated and anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves.

That Said, I Don’t Feel Bad for the Sixers

This is going to sound cold but I’m not going to sit here and cry about a hard foul in a playoff game. That’s bully ball. That’s what playoff basketball looks like against a physical team in a hostile building.

The Knicks came out Monday night and set the tone from the opening possession. They were physical, aggressive, and made it clear that they weren’t going to treat Embiid with kid gloves just because he had surgery three weeks ago. If anything, they’re going to target that weakness because that’s what smart teams do in the playoffs.

Sixers get blasted in Game 1 in the Garden, lose to the Knicks 137-98 >>

The Sixers’ problem Monday night wasn’t Mikal Bridges hitting Embiid on a screen. The problem was that the Sixers came out completely flat after playing a Game 7 in Boston 48 hours earlier and had nothing to give from tipoff.

They weren’t ready to compete. They weren’t ready for the physicality. They weren’t ready for a Knicks team that had six days of rest and was itching to make a statement. Getting punched in the mouth was inevitable. Not punching back was the issue.

Does the scheduling piss me off? Absolutely. Playing Game 1 on Monday after a Game 7 on Saturday night is a joke and the NBA should be embarrassed by it but at the same time, the Sixers have to come out ready to hoop regardless of the circumstances. They weren’t and it showed.

Joel Embiid Has to Be Ready for More of This

The Knicks are not going to stop being physical with Embiid. They’re going to bump him, lean on him, hit him on screens, and make him fight for every inch of space on the floor. That’s their identity. Towns, Robinson, Bridges, Hart, all of them play with an edge and they’re going to test Embiid’s body every single game. If Bridges going into his midsection was a message, the message was clear. We know you just had surgery. We don’t care.

Here’s what Joel Embiid said postgame:

“I got hit on it,” Embiid said. “I don’t know if it was—obviously, based on what’s been going on. I guess I got to protect it more. I don’t know if it was dirty or not. I guess I gotta do a better job of protecting my (stomach), yeah, especially that part.”
– (USA TODAY)

Embiid has played through worse. He’s proven that repeatedly over the last three weeks. But the Sixers need to match the Knicks’ physicality from the jump in Game 2 instead of letting New York dictate the tone of the series. Monday night the Knicks were the aggressors and the Sixers were passengers. That can’t happen again.

Game 2 is Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET at MSG. Embiid needs to come out angry. The Bridges hit should fuel that.

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