If Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid weren’t sick already, his team’s performance against the Toronto Raptors in the pivotal Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series was enough to make his stomach turn all over again.

Add an upper respiratory infection to the left knee and stomach ailments that have plagued Embiid throughout the playoffs. The 7-footer was ordinary for a fourth time in Philly’s second-round series on Tuesday, and the Sixers can ill afford a fifth now as the Raptors took a 3-2 series lead.

Embiid’s health should not overshadow how extraordinary the Raptors were in pushing the 76ers to the brink. Toronto’s offense finally fired on all cylinders, with all five starters scoring in double figures, and the result was a 125-89 blowout that granted Kawhi Leonard a fourth-quarter respite entering Thursday’s closeout game.

Sixers coach Brett Brown sums it up:

Arguably the best player in the playoffs this season, Leonard wasn’t even at his best in this one, although he did punctuate the second and third quarters with a pair of monstrous dunks. That he didn’t need to be is the most positive sign yet that Toronto can finally shed its playoff demons and reach the franchise’s first Finals.

Leonard still finished with 21 points, 13 rebounds and four assists in 35 minutes before resting with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter and his team leading by 30. The Raptors also got 25 points from Pascal Siakam, 19 from Kyle Lowry, 17 from Danny Green and 11 from Marc Gasol. Their vaunted bench wasn’t great again, but the reserves got plenty of garbage time to work through their struggles.

Inside and out, the Raptors outscored the Sixers 37-17 in the second quarter, turning a one-possession game into a blowout. Leonard’s driving dunk through all four of Philadelphia’s stars in the final seconds of the frame gave Toronto a 64-43 halftime lead and effectively left the 76ers planning for a must-win Game 6 at home:

Leonard did it again at the end of the third quarter, this time over Embiid:

Siakam bounced back nicely from a right calf injury that nearly cost him Game 4, and Toronto more than survived defensively with Serge Ibaka manning the middle as somewhat of a small-ball center. Ibaka played eight minutes with the starters in place of Gasol, and that lineup held the Sixers to 4-of-16 shooting while finishing a plus-17. The three stitches Ibaka’s forehead required from an errant Leonard elbow in the opening quarter only seemed to make Toronto’s defense more fierce.

Embiid was seen scanning a box score on the sidelines late in a game his team trailed by as many as 40 points, likely searching for answers after his team seemingly just held a 2-1 series lead with a real shot to put it away in Game 4. Instead, the final margin of Game 5 marked the most decisive playoff win in Raptors history, leaving us to question whether the Sixers can manage to force a Game 7.

Embiid’s 33-point effort in Game 3 of this series was the outlier. Hampered by injury and illness, he has averaged 13 points on 33 percent shooting in the other four games. If he does not shed the many ailments that have followed him at the worst of times in his career and revert to All-NBA form in Game 6, Philadelphia is fried.

Raptors fan Drake and the Scotiabank Arena crowd made sure to remind Embiid of his antics at the end of Game 3, when the series was briefly tilted in Philly’s favor:

There was much debate about Embiid’s fitness before, during and after the game. The “Inside the NBA” crew did not accept any excuses about his various illnesses.

“When you got guys sitting on the bench after playing terrible, looking at stat sheets shows me they’re not ready,” Shaquille O’Neal said on the broadcast. “[Charles Barkley] mentioned in the back room that they don’t have a leader. I have to agree with him. You’ve got to be hungry. You’ve got to act like you want it on the road.”

“It’s grossly unfair some of the criticism that he gets,” countered Brown. “I don’t understand that. It’s not ideal. You wish he were at shootaround and in film sessions, but he’s had a temperature for the last few days that’s kept him in bed.”

The Sixers also got little help from their other franchise cornerstone, Ben Simmons, who scored seven points in 25 foul-troubled minutes. He and Embiid combined for 13 turnovers and eight made field goals. JJ Redick was somehow worse, scoring three points on six shots. Jimmy Butler had his least efficient shooting night since Game 1, and Tobias Harris was a game-worst minus-34. This is all objectively bad.

They can salvage this series with another collective effort like they had in Games 2 and 3, so we will reserve our concerns about whether Embiid and Simmons can ever respectively be healthy and skilled enough to anchor a contender — and whether the Sixers traded their future for Butler, Harris and a perennial conference semifinalist. Philadelphia has at least one more game to table that conversation.

On his way out of the building on Tuesday night, Embiid was also seen telling Drake, “I’ll be back,” for Game 7 in Toronto. How he’d be feeling remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Toronto now has two chances to return to the conference finals, three years removed from the organization’s only trip that deep into the playoffs. This time, LeBron James isn’t waiting for them. Giannis Antetokounmpo might be, but the Raptors now have Leonard and the confidence that they can dominate a worthy Eastern Conference opponent when their superstar is not at his absolute best.

Even then, Kawhi is the real deal, and the Raptors might be, too.

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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

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