Sixers defeat the Clippers 112-98, take the season series

The Sixers beat the LA Clippers 112—98 tonight, extending their win streak to 7 games at home. The Sixers played well all game, leading by 16 at one point. However, the game never felt out of reach for the Clippers. This was made more evident after Joel Embiid went out in the 4th with an apparent knee injury and the Clippers were able to pull within two points with 6:05 left to play in the game. Luckily, the Sixers were able to hold on and pull out the win.

What was almost the top story of the game was Embiid’s knee injury. After losing the ball on a dribble, Embiid slipped and stayed down appearing to grab and stretch his knee. He made his way to the bench, and after talking to the training staff went back to the locker room. Later, he was deemed available and put back into the game. Many believe if he is available he should play, but this is the same medical staff that deemed him available when he was playing on a torn meniscus last season. Only time will tell if this injury proves to be anything, but after the game, Embiid told NBCSports Philadelphia’s Molly Sullivan that the injury was nothing and he was feeling great.

Before coming out of the game for the injury, Embiid had a strong performance, finishing with 29-16-2, tying his season high in rebounds. Despite his high point total, Embiid was not the most efficient scorer, with an eFG% of 41.3%. After the injury, Embiid’s only points came from free throws, of which he made 10-13 on the night.

Although Embiid had a team-high 29 points, it never felt like he had taken over the game. Scoring and rebounding were fairly evenly distributed amongst the other players and both T.J. McConnell and Justin Anderson had strong performances off the bench. McConnell finished with 17 points and 8 rebounds and shot 3-3 from beyond the arc. He is currently shooting 51% from three on the season. Anderson finished with 11 points while shooting 5-7 including two three-pointers. Anderson has had nice games the past two nights. Hopefully, the trend of providing quality minutes off the bench continues.

On the other side of the ball, Lou Williams continues to shoot the lights out off the bench. He finished with a team-high 23 points, shooting 9-21 with four three-pointers. Tobias Harris and Danilo Gallinari also had good nights, scoring 17 and 22 points respectively. Gallinari played for a game-high 40 minutes in tonight’s matchup.

Other Notes

Ben Simmons had his 21st double-double of the season, with a stat line of 14-5-10. As he says, his stats speak for themselves.

J.J. Redick shot 50% from 3 against his former team, finishing with 17 points.

Dario Saric was so close to a double-double, with 10-9-5. Of the 51 games he’s played in this season, he has scored in double figures in 41 of them.

The Sixers will take on the Kristaps Porzingis-less New York Knicks on Monday in Philadelphia.