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After confidently stating that the Philadelphia 76ers would come back to win their first-round series against the New York Knicks following a Game 2 setback, Joel Embiid faced the harsh reality of his vow falling short. Ultimately, his season ended with a disappointing 118-115 Game 6 loss at Wells Fargo Center.

“It sucks to lose,” Embiid said. “The goal is to win a championship. Anytime that don’t happen, that’s all I care about. I don’t care if I got to the second round; that does not mean anything to me. We just didn’t accomplish what we wanted to. And the thing is: We believe in ourselves so much that we believed that we actually could’ve won it. But everything didn’t go the way we wanted it to.

“A lot of different circumstances. … Got to be better as basketball players. I’ve got to be better, starting with myself. The whole series I could’ve played better. Maybe if I was better, we would’ve won it, so that’s on me. That’s why we lost. So just got to find a way to get better as a basketball player, as a person, as a leader and come back and hope that everything else aligns.”