It was not exactly a warm reception for Joel Embiid at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.
Embiid, the 76ers star who’s been at the center of plenty of controversy in the first-round series against the Knicks, was booed before Game 5 and seemingly every time he touched the ball in the first half of the game before Philadelphia stormed ahead to a shocking 112-106 overtime victory.
Embiid finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists and said after the game that he did not mind all the noise.
“I love New York. New York is my favorite city in the world,” he said. “And then the fans, when you play against a team, you know they’re always going to pick that guy and they seemed to have picked me, which is fine — I love it. I gotta be the punching bag. You hear a lot of ‘F Embiid’ and that’s OK.”
As he was introduced as part of the starting lineups, the raucous crowd at The Garden rained boos down on the big man, making it hard to hear his name over the public address system.
That came after TNT’s Jared Greenberg held up a copy the Tuesday back page of The Post, which dubbed Embiid as “The Most Hated Man in NY.”
Fans in and around MSG were also heard chanting “F–k Embiid” as they had after Game 4’s win at Wells Fargo Center.
Rapper Fat Joe, attending the game, posted a video on social media saying that “My fist stinks a little because Joel Embiid just walked by and gave me a dap.”
The Garden crowd did erupt in jubilation in the second quarter, though, when the Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson dunked over Embiid.
Robinson was knocked out of Game 4 after Embiid had grabbed the Knicks big man by the lower leg during Game 3, which was called a flagrant foul — but was not enough to get Embiid ejected from the game.
However, the fans were not as excited when all was said and done after the shocking Knicks loss.