Sixers vs. Pistons takeaways: Sixers stars get much-needed rest, Detroit plays dreadfully and Montrezl Harrell settles in

For the 76ers, the best thing about this game was resting their starters.

The Detroit Pistons might be worse than their league-worst 8-26 record would indicate. And Montrezl Harrell is settling into his backup center role.

Below is my look at three things that stood out during Wednesday’s 113-93 victory over the Pistons at the Wells Fargo Center.

Joel Embiid had game highs of 22 points and four blocks to go with a co-game-high 10 rebounds and six assists. It was the Sixers All-Star center’s eighth game with at least 20 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists.

Georges Niang finished with 11 points while making 3 of 11 three-pointers, marking his 12th game with at least three triples this season. And P.J. Tucker grabbed a season-high 10 rebounds.

But Wednesday had a routine feel for the Sixers (18-12). One good thing was the fifth-place team remained a game behind the fourth-place Brooklyn Nets in the Eastern Conference standings. The second good was they didn’t have to play their starters a lot of minutes.

James Harden played a season-low 32 minutes, 34 seconds. Tobias Harris’ 21:08 were his season low. Meanwhile, Embiid (34:11) and Tucker (21:07) played fewer than their season averages.

» READ MORE: Sixers’ Paul Reed admits to being frustrated after losing backup center spot: ‘I have to get better’

“Obviously, we’re going to play great teams, [and] that’s not going to be the case,” Harris said of resting players. “They’re going to be hard-fought games. But, for us as a group, we know the teams that we should go out and have a lead and maintain a lead, be able to have the comfort in the fourth quarter to get guys less minutes, and have guys that come off the bench play more minutes is good for us.

“So we know, as a group, that’s always been our mindset. We just haven’t really been able to do it that much this year. But, hopefully, tonight starts some of that.”

This marked Detroit’s fourth straight loss and seventh in eight games.

The Pistons basically were overmatched at every position and were a turnover waiting to happen. And they even struggled from the foul line, missing nine of their 34 attempts.

This team has a long way to go from being a contender, especially with standout second-year point guard Cade Cunningham having season-ending surgery on his left shin. But therestruggles are not surprising, considering their youth. They even start two rookies in Jaden Ivey and former Roman Catholic standout Jalen Duren.

» READ MORE: Sixers win sixth straight as Joel Embiid has 22 points and 10 rebounds

“There’s a lot of situations we have to learn from,” Piston coach Dwane Casey said. “We got almost close to half a season with a lot of young players. Got to learn from these situations, not make the same mistakes twice.”

Against the Sixers, their biggest mistakes were their turnovers as they committed 22. They even turned the ball over multiple times while inbounding the ball after Sixers made baskets.

“We had cleaned up our turnover situation the last couple of weeks, but now it jumped back up tonight,” Casey said. “Fatigue, whatever the situation is, but we got to make sure we take care of the ball.”

This was Detroit’s second game in as many nights. It suffered a 126-111 home loss to the Utah Jazz Tuesday night.

The Sixers signed Harrell this offseason to provide a spark from the bench.

The 2020 sixth man of the year definitely has done that in three of the last five games. The backup center had 10 points on 5-for-7 shooting in 9:30 of action. Six of those points came on 3-for-3 shooting in the first quarter.

This comes after the eighth-year veteran had seven points on 3-for-4 shooting in Monday’s victory over the Toronto Raptors. And on Dec. 11, Harrell scored nine while making 4 of 5 shots.

He’s averaging 5.0 points on 55.4% in his 26 games this season.