The showdown for the first seed in the East started off like any showdown would. The Sixers went to their best player, Joel Embiid, early on and he surprisingly went 3-9 from the field in the first quarter thanks to DeAndre Jordan. Jordan had 6 points and 11 rebounds after that period, and that is the most rebounds a Net has grabbed in a quarter in over two decades.
Kyrie Irving went to work on offense and ended the first half with 23 points on 8-11 shooting from the field. Embiid at this point had 21 points, but it was on 6-16 shooting. Tobias Harris had an extremely efficient start to clean up with 17 points on 8-10 shooting from the field. Nevertheless, Nets trailed 58-65 heading into the break.
In the second half, things got out of reach for the Nets when the Sixers pushed their lead to as many as 22. Philadelphia forced 15 turnovers and capitalized off of them on the other end, leaving no prisoners.
spin on 'em @KyrieIrving pic.twitter.com/uJ6ptP2zgZ
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) April 14, 2021
When the game seemed all but over, a late run by a lineup of Bruce Brown, Landry Shamet, Alize Johnson, Timothe- Luwawu Cabarrot and Nicolas Claxton trimmed the large lead to single digits and from single digits to a single possession game at one point. Doc Rivers transitioned from his bench to his starters to try to calm down this late surge by Brooklyn in the last quarter, but it didn’t do much.
Fortunately for them, the starters came through, but barely for the Sixers and they got out of this one with the win. Philadelphia is now the first seed in the Eastern Conference and secure the tiebreaker against the Nets. The leading scorer of this game for Brooklyn was Kyrie Irving with 37 points and 9 assists on 13-22 shooting from the field.