Joel Embiid entered Thursday night’s contest wanting to send a message. It’s safe to say he succeeded, as he valiantly led the Sixers to a tough road win over the Celtics, 115-109.
As many would have predicted, the clubs engaged in a back-and-forth battle, but in the end, the Sixers got too much from Embiid down the stretch. The young big man ended the night with 38 points on 12-for-21 shooting from the field. He also added 13 rebounds, six assists and a game-sealing block against Daniel Theis to preserve the victory for Philadelphia.
Heading into the contest, fans in Boston looked forward to welcoming Al Horford back to the building where he spent the last three years of his career wearing Boston green, but he was held out of the contest due to a sore left knee and tightness in his left hamstring. Even without him, though, Philadelphia was able to emerge with the impressive road win.
The teams battled fairly evenly in the game’s first half, as the Celtics carried a 59-56 lead into the half behind 53 percent shooting. Kemba Walker also scored 21 of his 29 in the game’s first 24 minutes before fading down the stretch. Unfortunately for Boston, he was held scoreless for the first 10 minutes of the game’s fourth period, during which the Sixers were able to capitalize.
Fell short. pic.twitter.com/TJdmqsZv5E
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 13, 2019
Philadelphia managed to open up a nine-point lead with about 2:30 remaining before Walker sparked a 7-0 Boston run to trim the Sixers’ lead to just two points with 1:01 remaining in the game, but it was too little, too late.
The Celtics managed to cut the deficit to a single point on a late Jayson Tatum 3-pointer, but a pair of clutch free throws by Ben Simmons on the preceding possessions left Boston with a deficit. A critical no-call on what appeared to be a foul from Josh Richardson and a late block by Joel Embiid on Daniel Theis helped the Sixers clinch the victory. The final score of the contest doesn’t actually reflect how tightly it was contested.
Tobias Harris added 23 points for the Sixers while Enes Kanter (10-for-13 shooting) scored 20 points off the bench for the Celtics.
With the loss, the Celtics fall to 17-7 on the season while the Sixers improve to 19-7 and move into first place in the Atlantic Division.