Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers will take their show on the road Thursday when they begin a five-game trek against the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis.
Embiid put on a dazzling display Monday in his last outing, erupting for a franchise-record 70 points in the Sixers’ 133-123 home victory over the San Antonio Spurs.
The reigning NBA MVP made 24 of 41 shots from the floor and 21 of 23 attempts from the foul line. He also had a season-high 18 rebounds for Philadelphia, which has won six in a row.
“Obviously he can score in so many ways, just his sheer size gets him a lot of stuff around the basket, gets him a lot of free throws,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said of Embiid, who has scored at least 30 points in 21 consecutive games.
“The shooting touch is the skill part. The way he moves, the skill he has, the size he is, and he gets motivated like that, anything can happen I guess.”
Embiid, who averages a league-best 36.1 points per game, did his best to put his impressive night into perspective.
“It’s not like I just woke up one day and I was like, ‘I gotta try and go out and dominate and have the best game of my career.’ I try to do that every night,” Embiid said, per the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Embiid recorded a pair of strong performances against Indiana earlier in the season. He collected 37 points and 13 rebounds in the 76ers’ 137-126 win over the Pacers on Nov. 12 and added 39 and 12, respectively, in a 132-126 setback two nights later.
Tyrese Haliburton contributed 25 and 33 points, respectively, to lead Indiana in those games and averages a team-high 23.6 points per game and a league-best 12.6 assists. The All-Star guard, however, sat out the Pacers’ 114-109 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday with a hamstring injury and will miss Thursday’s game as well.
Although sidelined, Haliburton wasn’t shy about showing his support to his teammates from the bench on Tuesday.
“That’s who Ty is. He’s a vocal leader and is happy for every guy one through 15,” Indiana’s T.J. McConnell said. “The confidence that he instills in everybody … when your franchise guy is like that, it’s easy to go out there and play your game. Who he is as a teammate is incredible — one of the best I’ve been around.”
Myles Turner scored 22 points and recent trade acquisition Pascal Siakam added 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Pacers, who have lost three in a row and five of their past six games.
“So far, I like the personnel we have,” Siakam said. “It seems like the guys care about wanting to win and I think for me that’s the most important. Just being in an environment where at the end of the day, we want to give everything we have to win.
“It’s a lot of encouraging things and a lot of things that we can get better at.”
Andrew Nembhard recorded 15 points and seven assists while starting in place of Haliburton.
–Field Level Media
