PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers needed a win in order to even their record at .500 and move forward after a slow start to the season. On Sunday, they welcomed the Utah Jazz into town who have been playing some terrific basketball to begin the season.
In order for the Sixers to pick up a 105-98 win at home, they needed Joel Embiid to throw the team on his back and lead the way. He responded with one of the best nights in the history of the game.
Embiid had a career-high 59 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, and he tied his career-high with seven blocks to lead the way. He scored 26 of Philadelphia’s 27 points in the fourth quarter and the Jazz had no answer for the big fella.
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Afterward, Embiid went into detail about his career night in order to lead Philadelphia to a win.
Embiid on his seven blocks
“Just trying to protect the rim. They seemed to be really driving and kicking. They didn’t seem to be wanting to take a lot of midrange and just watching them. They wanna shoot 3s and they wanna attack the rim and I just got fortunate that tonight, they attacked the rim more than other teams usually do. I just tried to do the best job possible.”
On his favorite part about his performance
“Zero turnovers in the second half. Going into halftime, I just tried to still be aggressive. When you have the ball in your hands and you’re trying to be a playmaker and you’re trying to score the ball, you’re gonna turn the ball over, but in the first half, I had a couple of turnovers. In the second half, I just wanted to make sure, I didn’t speed myself and just take whatever the defense gave me so I’m happy about that, and then obviously, defensively, since I’ve been back, I feel like I’ve been playing at another level on that end.”
On when he knew he was going to have a big night
“When I finally made a 3 because I’ve been shooting the ball so bad this year from 3. I don’t know what’s going on. I got a couple days to fix it and I’m gonna fix it, but it was early in the game. I saw how they were guarding me. Just like last night, I’ll take that every night. If they’re not gonna double team as much, I hope every team does it so I’ll take it, but from the beginning. Just trying to see what they were doing and where the spacing was and just try to attack it, but obviously, in the fourth quarter with the game being so close, I just wanted to do whatever it took.”
On scoring 26 of Philadelphia’s 27 points in the fourth quarter
“It’s fun, but then again, I always go back to can’t get too high, can’t get too low. Tonight, those shots that I took, I usually make them and some nights, I’m gonna miss them. I’m just happy that they went in. It all went back. Like I said, my teammates knew who had the hot hand and they just had to feed me and I thought when I got double-teamed late in the fourth, I made the right plays, but like I said, we did it as a team. Then obviously, defensively, with the game that close, I had to be aggressive and make sure that they didn’t get any easy baskets.”
On what he said to Lauri Markkanen on his late free throws
“Just trying to get in his head. I don’t even know what I said. I was just talking. I kinda lied because Arthur (Embiid’s son) is already sleeping so I was like ‘I gotta put Arthur to sleep so you better miss these free throws. We don’t need to go to overtime.’ So I did lie because Arthur, he goes to bed, she don’t play around. Every single day, 7:30, he has to be in bed so I just told him I had to put Arthur to sleep and to make sure we didn’t go to overtime.”
On what he’s going to tell Arthur about this night
“I can’t wait until he starts to actually understand in a couple of years actually talking about my career. Watching these type of games–I’ll actually tell him I had a 60-point quadruple-double on this night when he grows up, but it’s gonna be fun. I’ve got a long way to go so. I got a lot more to accomplish. Obviously, the goal, we can talk about whatever tonight. Stats and all that stuff, but that’s not what matters. It’s all about doing whatever it takes to win a championship. That will be the best feeling ever. It doesn’t matter if I’m averaging 10 points or 30 or whatever. If you win a championship, that’s all that matters.”
Story originally appeared on Sixers Wire
