Joel Embiid and James Harden pairing finally ‘working very well’ for the Sixers

LOS ANGELES – The next great 76ers player to pair with Joel Embiid is always en route.

At least it has seemed that way since June 23, 2018, when former Sixers coach Brett Brown proclaimed the team would go ‘star hunting.’

Most die-hard Sixers fans were probably starting to worry last season if the window was gone.

Their beloved team had experienced a failed attempt to lure LeBron James in free agency and were unable to acquire Kawhi Leonard in a trade. The brief stint with Jimmy Butler was nothing more than a teaser. They took a step backwards during their season with Al Horford. Embiid and Ben Simmons couldn’t coexist despite developing a multi-season All-Star partnership.

And shortly after acquiring James Harden last season from the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Simmons, the thought was he was past his prime and a poor pairing with Embiid.

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Then, against the Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 9, it happened: Things clicked for Harden and Embiid.

Just like that, the Sixers got an elite pairing they coveted.

Over a month later, the Harden and Embiid two-man game might be one of the NBA’s best guard-center tandems in a long time.

“We understand each other; high basketball IQs,” Embiid said. “We just know how to play off of each other. Him finding me, me finding him. It’s working very well.

“We just gotta keep going, and I think we have a long way to go.”

The Sixers are in the City of Angels Sunday to face the same Lakers team where their partnership began to take shape..

Last month, Embiid had 38 points and 12 rebounds when the Sixers defeated Los Angeles, 133-122, at the Wells Fargo Center. Harden added 28 points, 12 assists, two steals and a block.

From that game on, they’ve been arguably the league’s most-dominant duo.

Embiid averaged 34.9 points, 10.0 rebounds, 1.0 steal and 1.6 blocks in 15 games played heading into Sunday’s matchup at Crypto.com Arena. He shot 43.9% on three-pointers during that stretch. In 17 games, Harden averaged 22.4 points, 12.0 assists, 6.3 rebounds and 1.2 steals.

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And the duo was the main reason the Sixers escaped Salt Lake City Saturday night with a 118-117 victory over the Utah Jazz.

Harden finished with team highs of 31 points and 11 assists to go with six rebounds. At one point, he scored 16 straight points in the fourth quarter. The point guard accounted for 76.7% of his team’s points in the quarter (18 points and two assists; five points created from those assists).

“It was huge,” Embiid said of Harden’s play. “It carried us. He did his thing. I mean in that fourth quarter, he made a lot of big shots. It was great.”

But his last assist was a behind-the-back pass to Embiid. The center took a step before scoring the game-winning 13-foot fadeaway jumper with 5.7 seconds left. Embiid had 30 points, seven rebounds, and two blocks.

Embiid and Harden are playing with a cohesion that was missing at the start of the season.

But as Saturday’s game displayed, there’s still growth to be made.

“There were opportunities where I felt like he had easy opportunities if he comes with me, easy layups,” Harden said. “If he comes with me, their big man was doing a really good job of just trying to bait me. So when I get closer to the rim, then he comes. So Jo had an opportunity for an easy six or eight more points … but he just wasn’t in the vicinity.”

The two will continue to converse about those opportunities with the hope that they’ll be more in sync moving forward.

“But yeah,” Harden said, “our chemistry is much, much better.”

Part of the reason the chemistry was a problem was because their style of play didn’t mix.

Harden is ball-dominant and has made a career of thriving in isolation plays. Embiid is at his best when the Sixers play through him. He was mostly out of sync while playing alongside Harden earlier in the season.

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“He’s so dominant and versatile to where I’m sure he’s never played with a playmaker like me,” Harden said. “So it’s just constant communication to where he hasn’t probably rolled this much before and I haven’t had a big that pops like that.”

So the goals of their pairing are simple: Execute, get a good shot and just keep going.

With repetition, they expect to be more on the same page and know what to expect.

But their pairing is also about sacrifice.

“I think he’s such a great playmaker, he’s got to have the ball in his hands,” Embiid said. “When he doesn’t play, I have another role which is [a] playmaker. I can go and get you five to 10 assists every single night.

“But with him, he’s such a good playmaker, you got to give him the ball. He’s going to give you the ball in the right positions. Not just for me, for my teammates. We just give him the freedom. And that’s why every single night, he has 15, 20 assists.”