MANHATTAN, N.Y.–The Philadelphia 76ers were able to come away with a 125-109 win over the New York Knicks on Sunday to complete a 3-0 road trip. The team was led by their new star duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden and the two of them were really tough to stop.
Embiid had 37 points, he shot 23-for-27 from the free-throw line, and had nine rebounds while Harden had 29 points, 16 assists, and 10 rebounds while shooting 10-for-10 from the free-throw line. All in all, the Sixers took 44 free throws in the win.
“You gotta make a decision,” said Embiid. “When you do, even when I have the ball, every single foul. Honestly, I probably could have gone to the free-throw line even more. The dunk at the end should have been an And-1, so you gotta make a decision. The way fouls are called, if you’re not straight up and if you’re on the side, that’s a foul any day of the week.”
The game lasted 2 hours and 29 minutes, but between Philadelphia shooting their free throws and even the Knicks taking 35 of their own, it felt longer than that.
“Just getting to the line as much as they did, and we fouled a lot too, I think this game lasted like 5.5 hours, that’s the way it felt,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Good win for us, but a little frustrating at times I thought with our fouling. It’s funny, at halftime we’re shooting 51% and I was really frustrated offensively. I thought the spacing wasn’t as good as it was the other night. The extra passes weren’t there, then in the second half, in the fourth quarter down the stretch, we started doing that.”
Everybody anticipated this with the addition of Harden. Both he and Embiid are two of the best in the league when it comes to drawing fouls and getting to the free-throw line and they showed that off in a big way on Sunday.
“That’s our job every single night is to put pressure on the rim,” Harden added. “That creates opportunities for ourselves and for our teammates. There’s a lot of opportunities where Jo had where he could’ve had And-1s, he just didn’t convert, but that pressure night in and night out consistently is going to be a load for teams to cover.”
The Sixers will now look to continue to grow as a team when they return home to host the Knicks in a rematch on Wednesday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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