Joel Embiid’s 50 points propels Sixers to victory over Washington Wizards

WASHINGTON — Joel Embiid collected the ball that had slipped out of his grasp with less than a minute to play, then drew the contact underneath the basket.

And with boos raining from the Capital One Arena crowd, the 76ers superstar big man swished both free throws.

That all but secured the Sixers’ victory over the woeful Washington Wizards. But, as Embiid himself said less than a month ago, 48 points does not provide the same flash as a round-numbered 50-piece.

So the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player splashed home one final fadeaway jumper for good measure with 19.1 seconds to play, then stretched out his arms in satisfaction as Washington coach Wes Unseld Jr. called timeout.

Embiid’s latest dominant performance against the Wizards — a season-high 50 points on 19-of-29 shooting, 12 rebounds, and seven assists — lifted the Sixers to an otherwise out-of-sync 131-126 win Wednesday night.

“That was one of those nights where I really had to be aggressive and get it going,” Embiid said. “[My teammates] made passes. They made the right plays every single time. I just finish them.”

Embiid’s scoring effort bested his Nov. 6 output against the Wizards, when he dropped 48 points on 17-of-25 shooting. It came after he had missed his team’s previous two games with an illness he described as “really bad.” And the Sixers (13-7) needed every bucket, as they failed to create comfortable separation against the 3-17 even in the game’s final minutes.

He scored 11 points in the game’s final five minutes, including a spin on Daniel Gafford that prompted “oohs” from the crowd before the ball bounced through the net. After another two jumpers, Embiid hung in the air to draw the foul that gave the Sixers a two-possession lead, at 125-119, with less than two minutes to play.

“It was a quiet 50,” said starting guard De’Anthony Melton. “It felt like he was just gong out there effortlessly shooting the ball and scoring.”

Embiid’s consistency kept the Sixers afloat on a night when they they missed their first 13 three-point attempts (and finished 8-of-27) and allowed the Wizards to shoot 56.5% from the floor.

Coach Nick Nurse lamented the blown defensive communications that led to wide-open looks, and the help defenders who were a step slow. But he also aimed to keep perspective, given this was one of the Sixers’ first games with a full roster following Kelly Oubre Jr.’s return from a fractured rib and the implementation of three new rotation players acquired in the blockbuster James Harden trade.

“It was one of those games you were kind of watching it and you’re going, ‘Jeez, we’re really having to work hard for not very good shots. And they’re not working very hard for really good shots,’” Nurse said. “And you don’t want that to go on for very long.”

Embiid also overpowered Gafford early, with 15 first-quarter points on 7-of-10 shooting. He then fueled the Sixers’ second-quarter surge to cut into a double-digit deficit, with a forceful old-fashioned three-point play and a jumper to get within to 56-55 with less than two minutes to go before the break.

In the third quarter, an Embiid straightaway three-pointer cut Washington’s advantage to 64-63. His turnaround jumper gave his team an 80-79 advantage about midway through the period, before he followed his own miss inside to tie the score at 84 with about five minutes to play in the period.

A driving one-handed dunk by Embiid again reduced the Wizards lead to one, at 95-94, at the 1:44 mark, before a go-ahead three-pointer by Patrick Beverley and a tough layup by Tyrese Maxey (26 point, seven assists) gave the Sixers a 99-95 lead going into the final period.

Before the break, Embiid racked up 26 points on 10-of-14 shooting and six rebounds. Melton added a productive 12 points, three rebounds, and three assists.

But not much else went well for the Sixers in the first half against an inferior opponent.

They allowed the Wizards to shoot 54.9% from the floor, and score 44 points in the paint. The Sixers committed eight turnovers that they parlayed into 11 points. Washington also got 25 bench points, including nine from Corey Kispert on 3-of-3 from deep and another nine from rookie Bilal Coulibaly.

That pushed the Wizards to lead by as many as 10 points in the second quarter, before an 11-0 run by the Sixers pushed them back in front, 51-50, on a Melton fastbreak layup with 3:09 remaining before the break.

» READ MORE: How the Sixers’ Tyrese Maxey has accelerated his ascension to NBA stardom

Oubre’s fourth-quarter burst — two go-ahead dunks and an and-1 finish in less than a minute of game time, before a corner three-pointer to put the Sixers up, 109-102 — provided a necessary spark for his team to squeak out a win.

But starting forward Nicolas Batum was also back from a finger injury, and so were Embiid and Maxey from illness, which offered Nurse his full roster to experiment with for the first time in weeks.

Oubre checked in with Beverley and Marcus Morris Sr. late in the first quarter. And when the second quarter began, Nurse went with an unconventional all-reserve unit with those three players, plus Robert Covington and Paul Reed.

After the game, Nurse said that was unintentional, because Maxey and/or Harris typically begin the second and fourth quarters with bench players. But after a first quarter with very few stoppages in play to make substitutions, Nurse said “we just felt like we should get the guys we were getting ready to bring in, in.”

That experiment lasted less than three minutes of game time, when Melton became the first starter to return with the Sixers trailing, 35-28. Harris (7:57), Maxey and Embiid (6:39), and Batum (6:02) followed.

Beverley (for Melton) was the first sub to enter in the third quarter, before Oubre came back in (for Maxey) at the 4:37 mark and Morris was close behind. But Maxey came back in for the final 2:36 of the frame, entering with the Sixers trailing, 95-89.

The Sixers began the fourth with Maxey, Beverley, Oubre, Morris, and Reed — and Oubre remained in the game until the 1:58 mark.

That sub pattern squeezed Danuel House Jr. and Jaden Springer out of the rotation.