On February 28, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, in the early morning of a game, the 76ers away 125-109 victory over the Knicks, the first three quarters and a half of this game is still some suspense, the last 7 minutes of the fourth quarter, the 76ers played a wave of 19-4, successfully closed the game.
After winning this victory, the 76ers have won three straight, and the current record is 37 wins and 23 losses, continuing to rank third in the East, while the Knicks have suffered five consecutive losses and currently have a record of 25 wins and 36 losses, ranking fourth from the bottom in the East.
In this game, the 76ers duo still performed well.
Starting with Harden, this is Harden's second game after joining the 76ers, he continued the fiery state of the previous game, scoring 13 points and 4 assists in the first quarter, and at the end of the half, he had 15 points, 5 rebounds, 10 assists and 4 steals to fill the data column.
All the time, Harden played a total of 39 minutes, shooting 8 of 14, 3 of 7 three-pointers, 10 of 10 free throws, had a triple-double of 29 points, 10 rebounds and 16 assists, and he also delivered 5 steals, reaching +19 plus-minus on the field.
After this battle, Harden set a record again:
—The first player in 76ers history to have 25 points, 10 rebounds, 15 assists and 5 steals in a single game
— The second player in NBA history to have multiple times with 25 points, 10 rebounds, 15 assists and 5 steals, the last being Chris Paul (2006, 2009).
The first player in history to represent his new club with 25 points and 10 assists in his first two games, he had 27 points, 8 rebounds and 12 assists in his last debut.
After joining the 76ers, Harden set records in succession, and Harden's attitude is very modest: "This is only the second game I play here, we still have a long way to go, but I like the direction we are going... The biggest takeaway was that we had two great wins, tonight was better than the last one, it was a glue game, we found a way to win, it was going to be a process. ”
After Harden, let's talk about Embiid.
Embiid scored 34 points and 10 rebounds on Harden's debut night, this Harden "second show night", his state is still heroic, playing 36 minutes, bombing 37 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists, +18 on the field.
It needs to be said that Embiid scored only 7-of-18 goals and 4-of-4 from three today, but he made 27 shots at the free throw line and scored 23 points.
What is the concept?
The 27 free throws in a single game are the second-highest in the NBA in the past six seasons, and coincidentally, the top high is simmons from Embiid's former teammate Simmons , who made 29 free throws in games against the Wizards in 2017-18, but he only hit 15 of them.
There are a few more statistics about Embiid's free throws this season:
- Averaged 11.6 free throws per game, the league's first
- Averaged 9.5 free throws per game, the league's first
- 0.35 free throws per minute, the first in league history
Embiid and Harden are both big free throwers, and the pair have made 59 free throws in their first two games, which is higher than the total number of free throws in the league's 22 teams in the last two games.
In addition, the two have contracted nine of the top ten free throws per game in a single season for the past eight years, and it is no exaggeration to call the duo the most foul-making in history.
The number of free throws will inevitably cause controversy, but it is undeniable that Embiid and Harden are indeed becoming the best combination of interior and exterior lines in the competition, and the blocking of the two is extremely threatening, as Russell said after the last game: "The crazy thing is, we know what they want to play, and we try to limit them, or they still play what they want to play, it's crazy." 」 ”
After today's game, Maxi also said: "I don't know how to describe it for a while, the opponent is very helpless, can't do anything, if they don't foul, then they will score." ”
Since maxi is mentioned, let's say two more words.
In Harden's first two games with the 76ers, Maxi's performance was not bad at all, with 28 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 steals (12 of 16), 21 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals (8 of 14) in each of the two games.
In Simmons' absence this season, Maxi has played a very amazing performance, currently averaging 17.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game, shooting 47.7%/40.0%/86.9% of the three and shooting 57.5% of the true shooting rate.
In contrast, Maxi averaged only 8.0 points, 1.7 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game last season, and looking at the data improvement alone, he is fully qualified to compete for the fastest improving player.
In another contrast, Harris averaged 18.3 points per game this season and shot 56.1% from the field, almost the same as Maxie, but Harris's annual salary is 36 million and Maxy is 2.6 million.
That's what makes the 76ers terrible, they have not only harden and Embiid's duo, but also Harris and Maxi, for this advantage, Rivers said before Harden's debut, as long as any two of these four people are on the court, the 76ers will always have an offensive threat on the court.
So it's really not an exaggeration, after getting Harden, this year's 76ers can completely rush a championship, of course, the beginning is always wonderful every minute, I hope that the "wonderful" of this can last to the end.