For the Philadelphia 76ers, there truly is no place like home. After a nightmare road trip where they dropped all four games by a combined 73 points, they returned home on Friday and led by as many as 33 on their way to a 119-107 win over the Memphis Grizzlies.
Furkan Korkmaz scored a career-high 34 points to lead Philadelphia and Ben Simmons had 22 points and 10 assists while Tobias Harris had 21 points, six rebounds, and five assists to lead five players in double-figures. It was a terrific night for this team on a night where they really needed it back at home.
“It sure seems to help,” said coach Brett Brown. “We sure do love playing at home. You’re so used to winning at home, we love playing in front of our crowd. You feel a responsibility to perform in front of them. After our losing on the road, it does feel good to come back and win.”
Harris, who had a tough road trip shooting a combined 1-for-12 on the first three games of the trip before a 5-for-6 effort from deep in the final game, was happy to be home. He shot 3-for-4 from deep on Friday and it was good for them to return home, as it always is for this team.
“We want to get our morale up as a team,” he said. “We want to go into the break having that confidence and be ready to come back, put things together, and make a really good run. Obviously, we want to be better on the road, we’re not playing road games until the break, but at home, we want to really solidify ourselves and hold our team identity on the defensive end.”
Simmons had to step up in a bigger way once Joel Embiid went down at halftime due to neck stiffness and he understood the magnitude of this game. The Sixers could not lose another game after the 0-4 trip. They have to get things under control.
“We needed this,” said Simmons. “We stay tight in the locker room. That’s one thing we do well. Ups and downs, when times are tough, you’ve got to stick together, and I think we’ve done a good job of that. We didn’t get the results we wanted over the past week, but we won tonight and hopefully, that’s a step in the right direction.”
The Sixers have two more games before the All-Star break and they are both at home. Due to this fact, that makes those games some easy wins for this team. That’s the way it goes for them. [lawrence-related id=25229,25218,25215]