Joel Embiid scores 40 points to power the Sixers past Bulls in 119-108 road win

CHICAGO — As Georges Niang’s three-pointer from the right wing fell through the net, Joel Embiid raised both arms into the air.

In a duel between two players who will represent the Eastern Conference as starters in Cleveland at All-Star Weekend in two weeks, Embiid could finally celebrate.

The 76ers got 40 points from Embiid and survived a 45-point effort from the Chicago Bulls’ DeMar DeRozan to clinch a 119-108 win Sunday afternoon at the United Center.

“That guy [DeRozan], he was special tonight,” Rivers said. “We needed every point of Joel’s 40 to sustain it.”

It was a significant regular-season victory for the Sixers, who snapped a two-game losing skid and moved to 3-0 against a Bulls team that entered Sunday atop the Eastern Conference standings.

The Sixers built a 17-point second-half lead and, unlike Friday’s loss at Dallas, withstood any Chicago rally attempt.

When the Bulls trimmed the Sixers’ lead to 61-56 early in the third quarter, Seth Curry and Tyrese Maxey hit back-to-back three-pointers, before Danny Green added his own shot from beyond the arc to push their advantage back to 70-58. Later, when a floater by DeRozan got the Bulls within 85-81, the Sixers answered with a 13-0 run punctuated by a steal and transition finish by Tobias Harris (23 points on 10-of-15 shooting, eight rebounds, five assists) to reach their largest lead of the game.

Then after the Bulls’ own surge to quickly slice that advantage to 102-98, Harris answered with an and-1 jumper and hit free throw, before Embiid scored on three consecutive Sixers possessions to push the lead back to 111-103 with less than five minutes to play.

Both teams hovered around 50% shooting from the floor, though the Sixers went 12-of-24 from three-point range while the Bulls made just seven of their 26 shots from beyond the arc.

Following Friday’s loss at Dallas, Embiid said, “I hope everybody’s going to be ready [for Sunday], because I am.”

The MVP contender certainly was. And after his NBA-leading seventh game scoring at least 40 points, Embiid acknowledged the two consecutive defeats earlier in the week were his primary motivation entering the matchup.

“We had to win this game,” Embiid said. “Like I [said], I knew I was gonna be ready. I knew I was gonna bring more intensity to the game today.”

After shooting a combined 18-of-44 from the floor during the Sixers’ two losses to the Mavericks and Wizards, Embiid’s efficiency returned in a 14-of-23 output Sunday. He also went 10-of-11 from the free-throw line and pulled down 10 rebounds.

His fourth-quarter performance propelled the Sixers across the finish line. After the Bulls had gotten within 100-96, he hit a step-back jumper. Then he got to the basket twice for a driving layup and dunk. Another jumper extended the Sixers’ lead to 111-103 with less than five minutes to play.

He started the game even more effective, going 5-for-5 from the floor for 12 points in the first five minutes. Then, almost immediately after returning in the second quarter, he converted an and-1 and got past Nikola Vucevic to drive baseline for a dunk. He then hit a deep fadeaway jumper in the first half’s final minute.

“We talked about being aggressive early to him,” Rivers said of Embiid. “Vooch is such a good player, and we just felt like, ‘Let’s attack him early before he gets going.’ I thought that was a smart thing to do.”

Embiid added an and-1 finish after the Bulls had gotten the Sixers’ led down to 70-63, before hitting jumper through contact and the free throw to complete the old-fashioned three-point play. He also found Harris for a powerful and-1 dunk that got the Sixers’ players on the bench out of their seats in celebration.

The only thing that momentarily slowed Embiid down was when he hit his head diving for a loose ball late in the game. Embiid said he felt “pretty sore,” but that he “should be fine.”

That the Bulls were without All-Star Zach LaVine eased the blow of the Sixers missing defensive standout Matisse Thybulle, who aggravated his shoulder during Friday’s loss at Dallas.

But the Sixers still needed to guard DeRozan, who largely carved up those defenders while finishing 18-of-30 from the floor.

Rivers estimates the Sixers tried about seven different strategies against DeRozan, including zones and traps. But DeRozan consistently “rejected” screens, attacked 1-on-1, made a bevy of contested shots and found teammates for open three-pointers.

“You can’t rush him and speed him up, which we were trying to do a couple times,” Rivers said. " ... He’s just a very heady, smart, clever scorer. It was one of those games where, ‘Just guard him at the end of the day’ is what we said, and let’s take every other shot away from everybody else.”

Green, starting in place of Thybulle, began the game on DeRozan and was back on him at the end of the second quarter and at the start of the fourth. Harris held that responsibility for significant stretches during the second and third quarters and in crunch time. Maxey and Furkan Korkmaz were also used in brief spurts when Harris and Green rested. Two-way wing Charlie Brown Jr. even got a one-minute stint on DeRozan late in the first quarter, but immediately picked up a foul upon checking in.

“You kind of don’t want to foul him,” said Harris of DeRozan. “He has a release point that’s high, so when you do jump up there, if you get under his face, he’s gonna get those calls.

“But throughout that [game], especially in the fourth quarter, you just kind of guard him tight enough where he has to pass the ball to somebody else to make a play. But tough 1-on-1 guy to guard, for sure.”

During the last meeting between these two teams, Paul Reed — who is currently on assignment with the G League’s Delaware Blue Coats — did an excellent job as the primary defender on DeRozan.

In his return from a three-game absence due to knee soreness, Korkmaz finished with nine points on 3-of-8 shooting while running the point with the second unit. Rivers said Korkmaz “played well overall,” but mentioned Korkmaz had some trouble with the Bulls’ ball pressure.

Perhaps Korkmaz’s most important bucket was a driving layup during the Sixers’ 13-0 run, which extended their lead to 91-81 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter.

He made two of his five shots in the first half, a corner three-pointer and a cutting layup in the second quarter. He also dished a nice pass to Andre Drummond for a dunk during that period.

Korkmaz said he has spent much of the past week doing strengthening work on his knee and quadriceps.

“That was just an unlucky position,” he said of the injury. “It happens in basketball. I’m lucky that was not something serious.”

With Korkmaz back, second-year guard Isaiah Joe was limited to five first-half minutes.

Less than 48 hours after a crooked rim caused a 43-minute first-quarter delay during the Sixers’ loss at the Mavericks, the game and shot clocks on top of each basket in Chicago did not work Sunday afternoon.

Clocks instead were placed on opposite corners of the court. The public-address announcer also gave a cue when 10 seconds remained on the shot clock, then counted down from five seconds.

Oddly enough, during that Friday-night delay in Dallas, Rivers told a stunned Maxey that putting the shot and game clocks in the corners was once commonplace. In Boston, Rivers said, players on the bench used to lay in front of the clock so those on the floor could not see it down the stretch.

“[Maxey] was like, ‘Get out of here,’ ” Rivers recalled. “When he saw [the clocks in Chicago], that’s why he was laughing.”

Korkmaz added the unconventional setup reminded him of his high-school games played in Turkey.

“Some of the gyms, they had a shot clock, but most of the times it was not working,” Korkmaz said. “And then you needed to look at the floor or you needed to hear the coaches. Every time, they were counting ‘five … four … three...’

“That was actually fun for me. I didn’t feel pressure.”