The Sixers win in hell

The Milwaukee Bucks hadn’t lost a game since January 21. They were 16 victories in a row and it didn’t seem like they were the fittest team in the league by far. So much so that to achieve this streak they did not need to force Khris Middleton, who is being removed as a substitute and their minutes are being restricted so that he can take shape very little by little. They even allowed themselves the luxury some nights of going out on the court without Giannis Antetokounmpo. It did not matter. They kept winning as if nothing else could be done. When tonight, with 2:41 remaining in the third quarter, the Fiserv Forum score was 95-77 in their favor, everyone thought that the 17th was in charge and on its way. All except the ones in front of them.

The Philadelphia 76ers have surely achieved the best victory of their season. For the entity of the rival and the moment in which it arrived, for doing it in Comanche territory (only the Nuggets and the Grizzlies have a better record at home), for how they put the game with 18 down and, in addition to all this, for losing two starters throughout the match. First Tobias Harris, who missed a minute of the second half with a strained left calf, and then PJ Tucker, who missed the entire fourth quarter with back pain. None of this stopped the Sixers from making a totally incredible comeback that puts this team back on the radar for the playoffs. Because those from Philadelphia have always lived in the wake, more or less away, from the two giants of the East (Bucks and Celtics) since the season began. Almost no one has given them a real chance of killing either of them in a seven-game series, and surely almost no one continues without doing so. But today is a warning for navigators. As Giannis said after the match, “it’s a good lesson for us.”

The Sixers’ fourth quarter was impressive. 31-48 partial with 12/21 in field goals, 7/11 in triples and 17/19 in free throws. Of course, nobody can expect anything else, the performance of James Harden and Joel Embiid was tremendous. A win like that for these Sixers almost makes him indispensable. But from tremendous it became historic. No pair of Philadelphia team players had managed to both reach 30 points and 10 assists in the same game since Wilt Chamberlain and Hal Greer on October 30, 1965. More than 57 years ago. The escort finished with 38 points, 9 rebounds and 10 basket passes. The center, with 31+6+10. By the way, Embiid is the second center to record 30+10 points and assists this season after, of course, Nikola Jokic. Curiously, the Cameroonian wasn’t too happy with his performance: “I didn’t have a good game, I missed a lot of shots that I normally hit,” he argued. Maybe during a stretch of the match he was like that, but in the end, when he really counted, he did put them in. He finished with 50% shooting from the field and 60% on 3-pointers and it was he who put his team ahead for the first time in the second half by scoring a 3-pointer with 41 seconds remaining.