Joel Embiid in midst of historic 30-point streak only surpassed by Wilt Chamberlain, James Harden: ‘He’s too good’

When asked how his team would attempt to stop Joel Embiid, legendary San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did not sugarcoat the daunting task that awaited.

“I don’t think it matters what we do,” Popovich said before Monday’s matchup against the 76ers. ”I’ll give you some bull[expletive] if you want: ‘We’re going to do this. We’re going to X out here. We’re going to blitz him here. When he turns right, we’re going to do this.’

”Nah, he’s too good.”

Popovich was correct, as Embiid unleashed a career-defining 70-point avalanche. Yet that was the mountaintop of an ongoing streak of consistent scoring dominance, which has lasted more than two months, spearheaded his case to repeat as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, and anchored a Sixers team that entered Saturday with a 29-14 record and in third place in the Eastern Conference.

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Embiid, who sat out Saturday’s marquee rematch against the defending champion Denver Nuggets (and MVP rival Nikola Jokić), has scored at least 30 points in 22 consecutive games played, the fifth-longest such streak in NBA history. The only players with longer ones are all-timer Wilt Chamberlain, who had 25-, 31- and 65-game streaks in the early 1960s, and James Harden, the former Sixer and future Hall of Famer who had a 32-gamer during the 2018-19 season with the Houston Rockets.

“He’s really got his mind made up, and his mentality made up,” said Embiid teammate Danuel House Jr., who coincidentally was also a Rocket during Harden’s streak. “So he’s standing on business this year.”

Though it’s difficult to compare the eras — and styles — of those three players, looking back at Chamberlain’s and Harden’s feats help put Embiid’s into context.

Embiid is within striking distance of this particular Chamberlain surge, which occurred during his second NBA season.

During that stretch, the then-24-year-old had 10 outings with 40 or more points. By comparison, Embiid has eight 40-plus outings during his current streak. But perhaps even more impressive were the 55 rebounds Chamberlain pulled down during a Nov. 24 132-129 loss to the Bill Russell-led Boston Celtics.

That season, Chamberlain led the league in scoring at 38.4 points per game (Embiid is currently averaging an NBA-best 36 points per game) and field-goal percentage (50.9%) on 31.1 shot attempts per game. Chamberlain’s rebounding average of 27.2 that season was the highest of his career.

This occurred throughout two regular seasons — and the Warriors’ move from Philadelphia to San Francisco.

This stretch also is where Chamberlain’s 100-point game resides, which he accomplished against the Knicks on March 2, 1962, in Hershey.

Though Chamberlain carried the streak over to the first 23 games of the 1962-63 regular season, he failed to reach 30 points three times during the 1962 playoffs.

This run fueled Harden’s most prolific scoring season, when he averaged a career-high 36.1 points as arguably the league’s most lethal offensive player because of his ability to blow past defenders, draw contact at the rim, and bury step-back three-pointers.

It began with a 50-point triple-double against the Los Angeles Lakers. It included him scoring 57 and 58 points in consecutive games against the Memphis Grizzlies and Brooklyn Nets. And it featured a 61-pointer on Jan. 23 against the Knicks, when he went 22-of-25 from the free-throw line but 5-of-20 from three-point range.

“They go on a tear, and they get in the zone,” House said of that stretch for Harden.

When Harden’s run ended with a 28-point effort against the Atlanta Hawks about a month later, however, he almost expressed relief in his postgame comments.

“I knew I wasn’t going to get to No. 1,” he told reporters.

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There’s a reason why Harden did not believe he could ascend to that top spot. This is one of Chamberlain’s records regarded as unbreakable.

This streak made up the bulk of his best statistical scoring season, when he averaged 50.4 points. In 80 regular-season games that season, he only had two when he did not reach 30 points. That season also included 78- and 73-point performances, and 15 games with 60 or more points.

Those bonkers numbers are also why, when informed during his postgame television interview that he and Michael Jordan are the only players ever to record at least 65 points, 15 rebounds, and five assists in a game, an exacerbated Embiid exclaimed, “Wilt never did this?!”