Let’s go! The Philadelphia 76ers routed, thumped, beat the brakes off the Brooklyn Nets, 115 - 106.
Usually I don’t care for most regular season games. For me to put some stock into 1 of 82 games, it has to be a storyline attached to the matchup. And a storyline, that we had.
Former Sixer, Ben Simmons played against Philly for the first time and it came at Wells Fargo Center. Ben’s fallout with the team has been well documented so I won’t go over that. I’ll just focus on tonight’s game.
With all things considered, this was the best regular season win for my 76ers in a long time. Possibly years. No Embiid, no Harden, no Maxey, no problem! Only ten players were active for tonight’s game. Meanwhile, the Nets had all their top guys.
The Sixers had every reason to tap out after the Nets started the game on a 10-2 run. At that moment the guys could have folded up their tents and packed it in. Nope! They fought and finished the 1st quarter with the lead 26-33.
No one had Philly winning tonight. No one believed. Not Vegas, who had them as home underdogs, not the great TNT crew who all predicted a loss included Charles Barkley saying the Nets should win by 20. I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t even believe it could happen, as I cashed out my bet early in the 4th while they still had the lead. And for that, I apologize boys.
Shoutout to the 37 year old P.J.Tucker who played 37 minutes. While he didn’t score, he fought on defense and did P.J. things. Shoutout to George Niang who had a huge 16 points in 18 minutes and more important was chirping Durant and Simmons all game! Embiid had to be proud.
Paul Reed aka BBall Paul played excellent adding 19 points and 10 rebounds. Guards, Melton and Milton both were great with 38 combined points. And last but not least, Tobias “he’s a great guy” Harris was in his bag! Tobias has seen his role diminished to the 4th option on the team now and gets a lot of crap for the contract the team signed him to (he didn’t sign himself lol), but he reminded people just of what he’s capable of tonight.
Just when it looked like he might be out for the rest of the game from a turned ankle, Tobias came out the locker room and went to work. He understood the assignment and put his foot on the pedal. Harris got hot and started hunting defenders! Good for you.
In the post game interview Tobias said he went in the locker room and mediated, when asked about turning his ankle and going in the back. Now I have no clue what happy place he took his mind to but I’m going to need him to do that more often. It’s funny he said that because Ben Simmons has begun to meditate as well before games. I’m a believer in mediation but maybe Ben’s wear off after the second quarter of games. After a solid start, Ben did typical Ben things and only scored 2 points in the second half. Something he did a lot of in his last playoff run with Philly. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving combined for an impactless 43 points. Brooklyn looked small and soft. Again, they got crushed on the boards. They could really use a big body. Someone like a Hassan Whiteside, for example.
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