Joel Embiid’s 42 points power Sixers to 117-109 victory over Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics had a lot to do with the 76ers’ face-lift.

The Celtics sweeping them in the first round of last season’s playoffs led to several drastic offseason changes. The Sixers have a new coaching staff, hired Daryl Morey and other front-office personnel, and added new complementary pieces for Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Tobias Harris.

So some could consider Wednesday’s contest was sort of a barometer game to see how the new-look Sixers matched up against Boston. Just sort of. Both teams were without a key starter - Seth Curry (Sixers) and Jayson Tatum (Celtics) - due to post-health-and-safety-protocols reconditioning.

Yet, the Sixers still prevailed 117-109 in the first contest of a two-game series. The squads will meet again at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Wells Fargo Center.

“This says a lot,” coach Doc Rivers said of what this victory means to the revamped Sixers. “Boston is a top-tier team. They’re extremely well coached. They play together. They are a bunch of bulldogs, and that’s what they were trying to do and our guys didn’t back up.

“I don’t know in the past, but tonight there were two bulldogs going at each other. That’s what we have to be as well.”

The Sixers had the largest bark and biggest bite, outscoring the Boston, 31-17, in the fourth quarter. They closed out the game with a 6-0 run after the Boston pulled within 111-109 with 1 minute, 40 seconds left.

Embiid scored 42 or more points for the second time in three games.

The three-time All-Star center had 42 to go with 10 rebounds. He made 12-of-19 shots and went 17-for-21 from the foul line. Embiid had 45 points on Jan. 12 against the Miami Heat.

But Embiid’s free-throw attempts didn’t go unnoticed by Boston’s Marcus Smart.

Embiid “shot alone himself 21 free throws?” Smart asked after the game. “Our team shot 20. Can’t beat that.”

He noted that Sixers shot 36-for-45 compared to 13-for-20 for Boston. He said it’s hard to win that way.

“It’s tough,” he said, “especially when we’ve got our hands up a lot of the times and he flails and gets the call and down on the other end we’ve got our guys attacking the rim, getting a lot of contact and we’re not getting the whistle. It’s tough to play like that.

“If the roles were reversed, I’d do it every time. I’d be on (with big games) too. Every time I threw my arms up on every time I got touched, I’m going to the free throw line. It’s kind of hard not to get into a rhythm that way when you shoot 21 free throws alone and they allow you to hack on the other end, it’s tough.”

Embiid responded to the comments by Smart, who has a reputation for flopping.

“I’m sure he knows himself and he knows his game, too,” he said. “You know he does a lot of that.

“And I don’t think I do. I mean, you should watch basketball, and if you are a student of the game and you actually pay attention during the game, we all see every single foul. I get fouled.”

Embiid said there’s a lot of times when officials don’t call it when he gets fouled. He mentioned not getting a foul call three minutes left in the game.

The 26-year-old feels a lot of times officials call fouls on defenders, because they have to. The game is physical, and he said teams tend to try to get extra physical with him.

“I guess I’m just smarter than everybody else,” he said. “I just take advantage of it. I just take advantage of how they are guarding me.

“You can call that I don’t know basketball IQ. Like if you are going to put your hand up there, I’m going to take advantage of it.”

Harris took advantage of his opportunities Wednesday night, scoring 22 points.

Danny Green had 12 on 4-for-8 shooting - all three-point attempts. Shake Milton had 16 points in a reserve role. Simmons finished with 11 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists.

Jaylen Brown paced the Celtics (8-5) with 26 points, while Smart added 25, and Kemba Walker had 19.

The Sixers (10-6) moved into first place in the Eastern Conference with the victory. Boston dropped to third place behind the Milwaukee Bucks, who are 9-5.

“Losing to them in the playoffs and them being first in the East [entering the game], you want to go out and you want to play against that competition,” Embiid said of facing the Celtics. “You want to beat them. You want to see what you got and you want to prepare for the playoffs. I think we did a good job.”

While it’s still early, the Sixers looked much better than the squad that finished the 2019-20 season.

Back then, the Sixers were in flux.

That became evident after they were swept by the Celtics in the best-of-seven first-round playoff series. The Celtics capped the sweep with a 110-106 Game 4 victory on Aug. 24. The loss marked the first time the Sixers have been swept in the first round since 1989 and the third time in their history.

The next day, the team parted ways with coach Brett Brown. On Oct. 1, he was replaced by Rivers, who brought in a new coaching staff. Fifteen days later, they hired Peter Dinwiddie as the executive VP of basketball operations, and Prosper Karangwa as the VP of player personnel. And the team hired Morey on Oct. 28 to run the basketball operations.

Then on Nov. 18, the night of the draft, the Sixers traded the 36th pick and Josh Richardson to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Curry. They added Dwight Howard in free agency three days later. And concluded the face-lift on Dec. 8 by acquiring Danny Green, Terrance Ferguson, and Vincent Poirier from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Al Horford, a protected 2025 first-round pick, Theo Maledon (the 34th pick in the draft), and the rights to Vasilije Micic.

On Wednesday, the Celtics took a 61-58 cushion into intermission. Boston shot 50% from the field, including making 9-of-18 three-pointers.

Walker, in his second game back from a left knee injury, made 5-of-6 threes en route to 17 first-half points. Brown had 12.

Before the game, Green addressed the people in the arena about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in remembrance of MLK Day, which was Monday.

“It’s crucial now more than ever that we honor his message of love, acceptance, and hope,” Green said. “And that we live up to the legacy by leaving hate in the past, and living up to his words.”