Tonight, the Sixers escaped with a home victory over the Boston Celtics, 117-109.
The Celtics were without star forward Jayson Tatum, and were led by a hot-shooting Marcus Smart (of course), and Jaylen Brown, who tallied 26 points.
The story of the game was Sixers center Joel Embiid. The big man was dominant from start to finish, tonight, ending with a 42/10/2/2/1 line. The Celtics tried to play single-coverage versus Embiid, but he feasted on Tristan Thompson and Daniel Theis. Embiid made 17 of his 21 attempted free throws, and consistently found the open man when Boston double-teamed him.
Ben Simmons struggled from the field once again (2-5) and had 5 fouls, which hindered his playing time in the fourth, but he made some key defensive plays down the stretch and went 7-10 from the charity stripe.
Elsewhere for the Sixers, Shake Milton had 16 off the bench, Danny Green had 12 points on four threes, Tobias Harris scored 22 points and was a game-high +20, and Dwight Howard corraled 10 rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench.
The Sixers and Celtics meet again at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday at 7:30 pm.