The Philadelphia 76ers were able to finish off a sweep of their 3-game road trip following a 135-115 win over the Houston Rockets on Wednesday and that is something of a ho-hum final score for Philadelphia as they are a much better team than the Rockets.
However, the win was able to signify their improvements on the road.
The team was a dreadful 10-24 on the road before the league got suspended in the 2019-20 season. With the win on Wednesday, the Sixers are now 20-14 on the road with two games left away from Wells Fargo Center in the regular season.
“We shot 53% and scored 135 points,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Overall, we’ll take the win. Last year? We were dying for a road win, now we just want three in a row in a row so we’ll take them.”
Joel Embiid led the way with 34 points and 12 rebounds as he continues his final tune-ups before the postseason begins on May 22. For Embiid, it has been pretty simple why they have been able to win so many games on the road compared to the 2019-20 season and it is due to the amount of shooting the team now has on the floor after a dreadful previous season.
“The team fits,” he explained. “I feel like a lot of people aren’t talking about enough. Just the shooting, that was added. Last year, we didn’t have that. There was not enough space. This year adding Danny (Green), Seth (Curry), Tobias (Harris) has been improved. Guys coming off the bench. Furkan (Korkmaz) had been huge, Shake (Milton), coming in and doing a great job. The court is way more spaced. When it comes to the structure, I feel like, it’s not so much about being better, we just got a better-suited team.”
The amount of spacing the team now has on the floor makes it easy for Embiid to operate in the post. He did not look like his fully dominant self and he still had 34 and 12 due to both the Rockets not having a matchup as well as the Sixers having the floor spaced.
“We clearly had a matchup, right?” Rivers added. “Early on they tried to trap we kept getting 3s, they came out in the third quarter and didn’t trap, and so we went to Joel. This is not rocket science. We have a matchup against our best player, let’s use it, and I thought our guys did a good job of it.”
As the team continues forward, there will be games where they will have to go into opposing team’s buildings and get wins, and the team they have assembled looks better equipped to handle that than the 2019-20 version.
“The structure, the way we play,” Embiid finished. “Last year, when you look at it, it was hard, and I missed a lot of road games. This year, we’ve been doing a better job when I’m not playing and when I’m hurt.”
The Sixers now have six games left in the regular season as they return home on Friday to host the New Orleans Pelicans.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f1jxkahtwnvzepyp image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[lawrence-related id=45541,45534,45531]