Joel Embiid missed his first game of the playoffs last night due to a lingering knee issue, but that didn’t stop Ben Simmons and the 76ers from beating the Brooklyn Nets at the Barclays Center. Simmons responded to critics of his lack of scoring ability by dropping 31 points on 84 percent shooting from the field. Simmons also added 9 assists to his stat sheet.
The Sixers mid-season accusation, Tobias Harris, put in work to scoring 29 points, a post-season career high for the former Clippers Forward, while also adding 16 rebounds that on a normal night would probably go to the 7 foot 2 inch tall Joel Embiid.
“I thought it was a great win for us tonight,” Harris said in a post-game interview. We just got to our game and played hard and that was the name of the game for us… It’s a next guy up mentality.”
The Nets kept the game close through the first 3 quarters with a strong effort from Caris LeVert and All-Star Point Guard D’Angelo Russell who were responsible for 26 points apiece.
Smells like a victory.#PhilaUnite | #HereTheyCome pic.twitter.com/S5a6L5jHTg
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) April 19, 2019
The Sixers are now up on Brooklyn 2-1 in the series with one more game in Brooklyn before they head back to the city of brotherly love for game 5. With such a decisive win without their superstar talent Joel Embiid, fans might wonder if the MVP caliber baller will play in game 4 as he continues to deal with knee soreness that plagued him late in the regular season and now into the playoffs.
In their game 1 loss, Embiid left the game early because of the ailment after originally it was reported that he was going to sit for that game. Embiid came back in Game 2 to drop 23 points while pulling down 10 boards in 21 minutes of play.
