Sixers lose to Wizards, 116-111, as Joel Embiid’s 48 points are not enough

WASHINGTON — Joel Embiid thought about attempting the potential game-tying three-pointer with less than 30 seconds to play, but instead noticed a driving lane when Kristaps Porzingis vigorously closed out.

So Embiid pump-faked and dribbled twice toward the basket. Yet as the 76ers’ star attempted to maneuver around Daniel Gafford, his Washington Wizards teammate, Deni Avdija, smacked the ball out of Embiid’s grasp. That spoiled a dominant 48-point outing by the NBA’s leading scorer, and squashed the Sixers’ eight-game winning streak with a 116-111 loss to the Wizards on Tuesday night at Capital One Arena.

“I had a bad last two minutes,” Embiid said. “That was on me . ... They stripped the ball. [I’ve] got to do a better job of keeping it high.”

The Sixers (20-13) trailed by as many as 16 points against the Wizards, who entered Tuesday with 11 losses in their previous 13 games, and could not claw all the way back. They had three possessions to tie or cut into an 111-108 deficit in the game’s final two minutes, but Embiid tripped and lost the ball out of bounds, and De’Anthony Melton missed a contested transition layup before the All-NBA big man’s miss near at the rim.

“It would have been great to steal the game tonight, but they deserved it so much more than us,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said. “They played so much harder. Really, I’m just disappointed in how we approached the game tonight. …

“It’s almost like the basketball Gods [said] down the stretch, ‘Yeah, you don’t deserve it.’”

It was another gaudy stat line for Embiid, who also finished with 10 rebounds, three blocks, and three steals. He accounted for 16 of the Sixers’ first 23 points, then went to the locker room at halftime with 26 on 10-of-15 shooting. After missing his first four shots of the second half, he scored 10 points points during a 17-5 third-quarter run to cut the Wizards’ lead to 88-85 and set up the tight final frame.

James Harden added 26 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the floor and 10-of-10 from the free-throw line to go along with 13 assists and seven rebounds. Porzingis led the Wizards with 24 points and 11 rebounds.

The Sixers next play a road back-to-back at New Orleans on Friday and Oklahoma City on Saturday.

For the third consecutive game, the Sixers fell into a double-digit first-half hole. They rallied to beat the Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks, but could not replicate the formula Tuesday night.

The Wizards first built that advantage with a 22-9 run during the non-Embiid minutes that overlapped the first and second quarters. Even after Embiid returned, Washington extended its lead to 64-49 on a Monte Morris finish with 2 miniutes, 16 seconds to play before the break.

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Washington shot 55.8% in the first half, with 17 points from Bradley Beal, 14 from Porzingis, and 10 from Rui Hachimura. The Wizards had a 22-13 rebounding edge during that stretch, including 7-3 on the offensive glass. The Sixers, meanwhile, made just two of their 16 three-point attempts before the break.

“You could see it early, we thought it was going to be an offensive contest and we were just going to outscore them,” Rivers said of the 67 first-half surrendered by his team. “We put no defense into the game until the second half, and we had to do zone to do that. ... We put no pressure into the ball. They literally went wherever they wanted to go.”

Perhaps most telling, however, was that the Sixers parlayed nine Wizards first-quarter turnovers into only 10 points.

“You’ve got to convert, and we didn’t do that,” Rivers said. “We took the first rushed shot. That’s just not the characteristic of how we’ve played during this stretch, [so] probably a good lesson.”

Though Tyrese Maxey remained out with a fractured foot Tuesday, Rivers continues to tinker with a roster that is far more replenished than it was a few weeks ago.

Matisse Thybulle, who had played less than seven minutes in three of his last four games, entered the game before fellow defensive wing Danuel House Jr. But House took that slot over Thybulle in the second half.

Montrezl Harrell and Paul Reed, meanwhile, both got backup center minutes. Harrell entered for Embiid late in the first quarter and scored seven points on 3-of-3 shooting in a span of 1:43. But, early in the second, Reed replaced Harrell and also got in the game for a defensive possession late in the first half while Embiid had two fouls. Harrell, again, got the center minutes when Embiid took his second-half break.

Veteran starting forward P.J. Tucker’s left the game in the third quarter with what Rivers called a stinger in his right hand, after he hit the floor on a third-quarter offensive foul committed by Porzingis.

“I don’t think it’s anything that’s going to linger,” Rivers said. “But I didn’t check, so I’ll find that out.”

Tucker, who did not speak to reporters following the game, revealed last week that he has been playing through a pinched nerve in his hand. After the play that took him out of the game, Tucker repeatedly opened and closed his hand and shook his arm on the bench during a timeout while being attended to by head athletic trainer Kevin Johnson. He went back to the locker room at the start of the fourth quarter and eventually returned to the bench, but never re-entered the game.

Georges Niang immediately took Tucker’s place in the lineup and played a team-high 21:47 in the second half.