Gasol and Ibaka employed a really cool communication strategy on defence against Embiid

BarDown Staff

Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images

A big reason why the Raptors were able to win their series against the 76ers and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals was their defence against Joel Embiid.

Philadelphia's All-Star scored over 20 points just twice in seven games against the Raptors and while it was a team effort to keep him from dominating, a lot of credit goes to Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka. Communication is a big part of any sport and two had a unique way to communicate throughout the series so Embiid wouldn't understand what they were saying to each other.

Cool nugget from Raptors very international team. Serge Ibaka speaks french to Pascal Siakam, spanish to Marc Gasol & english to the rest team. When Serge & Gasol doubled Joel Embiid they would yell where to help from in Spanish so Joel (who speaks french) could not understand.
— Rosalyn Gold-Onwude (@ROSGO21) May 13, 2019

Something as simple as knowing what language another player understands and not speaking it could be a big advantage for a team.

It's cool to see that teams and players think about these sorts of things because it shows how far teams will go to try and get any upper hand they can.

I recall @kobebryant and @paugasol would do the same thing when they were teammates. Smart!
— Kyle Stack (@KyleStack) May 13, 2019

Very cool.
— David Lefkowitz (@DavidNLefkowitz) May 13, 2019

Strategy
— Jah Mal (@_Jah_Mal) May 13, 2019

love the inside on this!
— Alan Ly (@theAlanLy) May 13, 2019

This is Great!
— Sparkxx (@RegSparkxx) May 13, 2019

It's going to be fun to see what strategies are employed in the next round against the Bucks who were the best team in the NBA this season and beat the Raptors three times during the regular season.