Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown has admitted that star center Joel Embiid looked a bit labored in the loss to the Indiana Pacers on Friday night.

Embiid put up monster numbers on the night, scoring 40 points and hauling 21 rebounds, but it wasn't enough for the Sixers to avoid a 113-101 loss.

The center left the floor at halftime with  28 points and 14 rebounds to his name. However, the Pacers rallied back to claim the victory on Philly's home turf.

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Embiid, who has been working extremely hard this season, has appeared spent during games as of late. And Brown noted that there was a difference in the player's energy levels in the second half of the contest.

“I feel like it’s a product of he’s really got a lot on his shoulders, you know, as far as the weight of our expectations on him, and he certainly expended a lot of energy in the first half,” the coach told ESPN after the game. “But I did feel like he fatigued, and I give some of that credit to Indiana because of how physical they were in the second half.”

The center, however, blamed the team's defense for the lapse.

"Defense," Embiid said after being asked his reason for Philadelphia's recent struggles. "Pick-and-roll, like I keep stressing, we have to adjust a lot. Like I've said in the past, It's hard because the coaches want us bigs to stay back and you know you have guys that just come and pull up, and when you come up, they get lobs or easy baskets.

"Indiana runs a lot of pick-and-rolls and they took advantage of that."

Embiid's stats on the night are still rather impressive, yet he admitted his performance simply wasn't good enough.

“It wasn’t enough. I guess next time I’ve got to get 50 and 25,” he said to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It doesn’t matter what I had or whatever, at the end of the day we didn’t come up with the win.”

What This Means

The 76ers have lost three of their last five games and defending has been a real sore point for them, despite their landing of one of the NBA's premier defenders in Jimmy Butler.

Embiid has also had notable problems functioning normally in the lineup since the guard's arrival, but he's also improving on a personal front and doesn't seem like he will need a lot more time.

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