Joel Embiid, the standout player for the Philadelphia 76ers, said he was simply doing “whatever it takes” to lead his team to victory after the 76ers defeated the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center with a 42-point performance from Embiid.
Nobody anticipated the encore that Embiid had planned. a day later, versus the Utah Jazz
The 76ers defeated the Jazz 105-98 thanks to a career-high performance from Embiid, who finished with 59 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, and seven blocks in 36 minutes. Embiid essentially carried Philadelphia to the victory by scoring 26 of the team’s 27 points in the fourth quarter and adding five of his seven blocked shots.
The most amazing thing of all is that Philadelphia needed every bit of Embiid’s effort on Sunday night in order to pull off a second victory in as many nights.
The 76ers looked to Embiid to lead them to victory down the stretch while James Harden sat out in street clothes on the bench nursing a foot injury that will likely keep him out for a month.
And Embiid accomplished that in a way that essentially no other player on the planet could. He routinely cut past Utah’s defense, committing a foul after another but also making a string of baskets.
He just missed one shot the whole quarter. A late 3-pointer would have given him 60 points for the game; however, Embiid later acknowledged with a smirk that the tough turnaround triple attempt was a heat check.
However, to say that he had earned it would be an understatement. Embiid shot 7 out of 8 shots from the field in the fourth quarter. All nine of his teammates’ attempts were unsuccessful.