{"id":199734,"date":"2022-02-26T03:30:52","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T04:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=199734"},"modified":"2022-02-26T21:58:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T21:58:32","slug":"embiid-thrilled-as-harden-dazzles-on-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=199734","title":{"rendered":"Embiid thrilled as Harden dazzles on debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia's Ben Simmons<\/a> replacement, James Harden<\/a>, has taken little time to adjust to his new team, playing a starring role on his 76ers debut.<\/p>\n

Harden had 27 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds while All-Star teammate Joel Embiid added 34 points and 10 rebounds as Philadelphia routed the Minnesota Timberwolves 133-102 on the road.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia finally got to see how its star duo worked together after Harden missed his new team's first two games following the trade from Brooklyn with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n

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The results were promising, particularly where Embiid and Harden thrive \u2013 at the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

Embiid, who had 21 free throws in a double-overtime loss to Minnesota in November, was 11-of-13 from the line. Harden was 8-of-9 as the 76ers went 30-of-36 overall.<\/p>\n

While Sixers fans were overjoyed to see Harden in action for the first time, no one was more excited than Embiid, who had admittedly grown tired of being Simmons' teammate.<\/p>\n

"You should've seen my face every single time, especially in the fourth," he said after the win.<\/p>\n

"In the first three quarters he was making plays for all of us. That was probably the most wide open I've ever been in my career. I had a lot of easy baskets.<\/p>\n

\"Joel<\/p>\n

"I used to have to work for everything, but in the fourth quarter the shot-making ability, the shot-creation, you should've seen my face, I mean, I've never had this, nothing close to it."<\/p>\n

Karl-Anthony Towns led Minnesota with 25 points, and D\u2019Angelo Russell had 21. But the Timberwolves couldn\u2019t replicate the dramatic win in Philadelphia earlier this season.<\/p>\n

The 76ers didn\u2019t have Harden – or Simmons, who was traded to Brooklyn along with Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and two first-round draft picks for Harden<\/a> – in November.<\/p>\n

Harden, the 2018 league MVP, hadn\u2019t played since February 2 due to the injury, delaying his pairing with Embiid. Philadelphia believes it finally has the top-level duo, and a strong third piece in Tobias Harris, to break through in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/LaurenMRosen\/status\/1497420723949907968<\/a>https:\/\/twitter.com\/SixersAdam\/status\/1497410781104656387<\/a>https:\/\/twitter.com\/KyleNeubeck\/status\/1497404698541924359<\/a><\/p>\n

The 76ers started the day third in the East. They have won four of five.<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia\u2019s first game following the All-Star break, Embiid controlled the first quarter from the line. He was 7-of-8 shooting on free throws and had 10 points and six rebounds in the quarter.<\/p>\n

The 76ers used a 15-0 run to take a 16-6 lead and never trailed again.<\/p>\n

Minnesota, coming off a 119-114 win over Memphis a night earlier, got to 51-48 late in the second quarter. But Philadelphia closed the half on a 15-1 run after Matisse Thybulle had a putback dunk right before the buzzer off a missed 3-pointer from Harris. – AP<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia's Ben Simmons replacement, James Harden, has taken little time to adjust to his new team, playing a starring role on his 76ers debut. Harden […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199734"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199736,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199734\/revisions\/199736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}