Sixers-Wizards takeaways: Pace improves without Joel Embiid, James Harden creates history, and more

WASHINGTON — The 76ers need to find ways to sustain their tempo and ball movement when Joel Embiid plays. James Harden is as satisfied compiling assists as he is scoring baskets. And the Sixers have to do a better job of holding onto leads.

Below is my look at three things that stood out during the Sixers’ 118-111 victory over the Washington Wizards Monday night at the Capital One Arena.

Embiid missed the Sixers’ game against the Wizards with what coach Doc Rivers believed to be flu-like symptoms. That came after the All-Star center sat out Friday’s game due to right knee recovery.

In both games without their biggest star, the Sixers played with elite tempo and did a solid job of moving the ball. The thing is, Embiid remains their best player and they’ll need him to make a deep postseason run.

So how can the Sixers find a way to sustain their tempo and ball movement with him on the floor?

“That’s something we got to figure out,” Harden said. “You know what I mean? That’s something that we have to put together. You know Joel, whenever he starts to feel better and gets back into the lineup, that’s something that we have to figure out, continue to communicate about and try to find ways that he’s involved, which is easy.”

» READ MORE: The Sixers work on moving the ball and picking up the pace

The point guard talked about finding ways to make sure the Sixers’ spacing is right when Embiid’s on the floor. That would allow Harden, Tyrese Maxey and the team’s other playmakers to get in the paint and draw two defenders to create open shots.

Standing 7-foot-2 and listed at 280 pounds, Embiid takes up a lot of space and draws a lot of attention.

“It has to be a balance,” Harden said. “Whenever he gets better and the more games we can get consistent, we can kind of determine that.”

Embiid played in Saturday’s 114-109 victory over the Chicago Bulls at the United Center. Despite the win, the Sixers’ pace was slow and they didn’t sustain their ball movement.

Also asked how the Sixers can duplicate Monday’s pace with Embiid on the floor, Doc Rivers downplayed the issue.

“We do at times,” he said. “We did it the other night. We did in the first quarter and then we lost our pace. He had very little to do with that. We’ve just got to sustain the play.”

But Tyrese Maxey thinks the main thing that will help is getting defensive stops.

“The more stops we get the freer we can play even with big fellas on the court,” Maxey said. “The big fellas, he likes to play fast. He’s willing to play fast. So that’s not his problem. We just got to get stops. That’s our biggest thing. Once we get stops, you can see in the Chicago game we got stops early.”

As a result, Maxey noted, everyone touched the ball and finished easy layups, including Embiid, early in the game.

“For us to get them every single night is going to be great for us,” Maxey said.

Harden is a three-time scoring champion and ranked third all-time in made three-pointers (2,610). But on Monday, he moved ahead of Stephon Marbury and Nate Archibald into 27th place on the all-time assists list (6,477).

The 17 assists Harden had against the Wizards were the most he has had since recording 17 as a Brooklyn Net against the Portland Trail Blazers on March 23, 2021.

Following Monday’s game, Harden, who also had 23 points and two steals, talked about what he meant to pass Marbury and Archibald on the assist list.

“For me, I just keep pushing,” he said, “keep trying to make my teammates better and play the right play, and good things happen.”

But he also added that he gets as much satisfaction from producing assists as he does scoring the ball.

Harden, who averaged over 30 points three consecutive seasons, likes being able to help teammates get eight to 10 points a night off his passes.

» READ MORE: Tyrese Maxey is learning the Sixers need him to be more selfish: ‘Isos are good for you, too’

“So as much as I get credit for the scoring, which people were saying, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re not averaging 30.’ It’s not about that,” he said. “I’m impacting games in so many different ways that I’m satisfied. It’s not a lot of people that can really do that. So it makes me happy.”

With 15 points and six assists in the first quarter, Harden accounted for 29 of the Sixers’ 30 first-quarter points in the period on Monday.

He’s now second in the league in assists this season at 10.0 per game.

The Sixers had a commanding 18-point cushion after Georges Niang buried a three-pointer with 10 minutes, 18 seconds remaining. The Wizards, however, pulled within five points with 33.8 seconds remaining.

Blowing leads and placing games in doubt isn’t uncommon for the Sixers. They blew a 19-point lead in Saturday’s victory over the Bulls. Those are just two examples of the huge leads that have shrunk this season. On Monday, they were nearly doomed by their late-game execution.

“It was good,” Rivers said. “It wasn’t great.”