PHILADELPHIA — Night after night this season, Joel Embiid has rejected any sort of significance to his performances. Not against Nikola Jokić, his yearslong nemesis in the MVP race. Not with Karl-Anthony Towns, his longtime foil. There were no ulterior motives, he protested; no need to prove himself. Embiid has dominated, he says, for domination’s sake.
It has been throughline to this 76ers season and for their magnetic superstar. His dominion over the basketball court, over everyone else on it, over the sport itself, has been so ubiquitous that it has become quotidian. He has waylaid opponents. Fifty points in Washington; 51 against the Timberwolves; 41 and 10 assists versus the Nuggets. He has shed an All-Star as a sidekick and come to have, shockingly, Wilt Chamberlain as a companion — at least statistically.
The numbers have grown so large, so often, that it was only a matter of time until history beckoned. Dominate so monotonously, and for long enough, and the records will come.
Monday night, here in front of a frothing home crowd, Joel Embiid finally took history for the ride. He scored 70 points, a new frontier for a franchise that has housed Chamberlain and Iverson and Dr. J and Moses. He scored more than them all.
It was just the 14th time ever that a player had crossed at 70 points, and Embiid is just the ninth to do it. Chamberlain, David Robinson and Embiid are the only 7-footers.
“I keep telling everybody, we cannot take this for granted,” Tyrese Maxey said in the afterglow. “Not just as teammates, not as an organization, but as fans. Even if you are not a fan of Philadelphia but a fan of basketball, you can’t take Joel for granted. What he’s doing right now is special.”
The performance was a tour-de-force, a complete annihilation of the San Antonio Spurs in a 133-123 victory. He took 41 shots and made 24 of them. He went to the free throw line 23 times and hit 21 of those. He grabbed 18 rebounds and dished out five assists, though those will be mere parentheticals when this night is remembered as the game Embiid broke Chamberlain’s 57-year-old franchise high of 68 points (his 100-point night and his 50.4 points-per-game season were for the Philadelphia Warriors).
The moment when he re-entered the game with 6:38 remaining in the fourth quarter — stuck on 59 points after three periods but glued to the bench as coach Nick Nurse waited to see if the Spurs wriggled close enough to call on him again — might live on as lore. The roar of the fans was deafening as he put his jersey on and made it clear he was about to go back in with the Sixers nursing a 14-point lead; a signpost of what was to come.
The anticipation of greatness built up with every shot and every bucket. The visage of Embiid, clad in a wet navy blue 76ers jersey after the game, triumphant at center court after a makeshift water bottle shower from his teammates, will endure.
“The history of this franchise, to have that happen tonight is really special,” Nurse said. “The people that were here got to see something really cool.”
He was superlative against the Spurs. They had come into Philadelphia with the sport’s new rage, a 7-foot-4, long-limbed, improbably-skilled neophyte with no comparison to anyone else who had played before. But Embiid has made a habit this season of knocking out peers who take the floor beside him. Just last week, he called Jokić the league’s best player and then knocked out Denver with imperious execution.
While Victor Wembanyama has attracted gawkers, inside the 76ers locker room no less, Embiid served a reminder that he too is almost unlike anyone else the NBA has known. At 7 feet and 280 pounds, his combination of size, athleticism and skill is unmatched. Large enough to stampede through defenses and balletic enough to dance around them, Embiid has also become a dead-eye shooter from the mid-range and dangerous enough from beyond there, too. Monday, he became the first player since Robinson 30 years ago to score 65-plus points without making more than a single 3.
Gregg Popovich had already resigned himself to near-capitulation before the game even began. Some 90 minutes before tip he was pragmatic about the Spurs chances in stopping Embiid.
“I don’t think it matters what we do,” he said. “I can give you some bullsh– if you want.”
As he has been so often in his illustrious coaching career, Popovich was right. Embiid ran roughshod over the Spurs from the very beginning with 24 points in the first quarter as he dismantled every defense San Antonio sent at him. The Spurs tried different defenders and schemes, they tried one defender and they tried sending two, and none of it worked. Embiid was mechanical in his demolition. He had 34 by halftime, and 59 after three quarters.
As he came back in midway through the fourth, he asked his teammates not to force him the ball. But Embiid is at the center of the Sixers offense, it revolves around him and bends towards him. Still, his teammates knew what was at stake. When Maxey tried to run pick-and-rolls to scramble the Spurs defense, Embiid’s defender never budged, so he tried to manipulate the action to give him the ball nonetheless. When Danuel House Jr. launched an open corner 3, he was roundly booed by his own fans.
Embiid, feigning humility as he might, saw his opportunity to keep climbing. “I might as well go and do it,” he said. He hit a foul line jumper off a feed from Maxey. He stepped into an 18-footer above the nail. He drew out six more foul shots.
His final points came with 1:41 remaining, after he had poked away a pass jetting through the paint on the defensive end, and then took the ball in transition and hauled his way to the rim to softly lay it up off the glass.
“I thought he was gonna go for 80,” Paul Reed said. “But we’ll settle for 70.”
The echoes of his outing found him after it was all done. As he sat at his locker, icing his aching feet in a cold tub, he learned that Kobe Bryant had scored 81 points on this same night 18 years ago. Embiid had begun playing basketball, he said, because of Bryant, and he had scored 70 on the anniversary of one of Bryant’s finest nights.
Embiid has racked up several of his own already this season. He is following up his first MVP season with a campaign worthy of another.
He came into Monday night averaging 35 points-per-game and doubled it; he’s at 36.1 now. He has scored more points than minutes played; he’d have to go scoreless over his next 60 minutes, or nearly two whole games for him, to even that out. If he finishes at this pace, he’d be the only 7-footer ever to average 35 or more points per game in addition to Chamberlain.
For one night, however, he accomplished what that legendary 76ers center never could. Not Chamberlain or Allen Iverson or Charles Barkley or any of the 22 Hall-of-Famers who have played for the franchise.
He did it with power and with grace. He did it with a style all his own, a brute who has come to play with beauty. He did it with the single purpose that has come to define him now at 29, in his 10th season in Philadelphia.
“That’s really the mindset; try to go out and dominate,” Embiid said. “I’m really pushing myself and challenging myself every single night. What else can I do? What else can I add to my game? Can I try something new to see if it works or if it doesn’t. I’m really challenging myself.”
Joel Embiid scored 70 points Monday, a feat that goes unmatched in Sixers history. The man who was once the avatar of hope for a downtrodden franchise has risen to such heights no Sixer has ever reached by pushing himself ever further in a season where he feels no boundaries at all.
Required reading
(Photo: Bill Streicher / USA Today)
