The NBA regular season continues, with the East facing a high-profile showdown, with the 76ers at home to host the Nets.
The reason why the two teams are so eye-catching is that on the one hand, there was a lot of conflict between Embiid and Durant in the last meeting, and on the other hand, the two teams completed a blockbuster transaction before the trade deadline, and Harden and Simmons completed the swap.
Before the game began, the gap between the two teams' records was not small, the 76ers were in third place in the East, and the Nets were in trouble, and the ranking had slipped to the eighth place in the East.
Although Ben Simmons could not play, he still followed the team to the away game, and naturally received crazy boos from the fans of his old club.
But this posture obviously did not scare Durant and Irving, who had experienced big scenes, and as soon as the game began, the Nets played a playoff-level confrontation and defense.
This made the 76ers look very uncomfortable, but Durant and Irving were in the hands, helping the team to establish a lead early.
Despite Embiid's overwhelming dominance on the inside and the difficulties of the face constantly creating a lethal stand on the free throw line, with Irving and KD's magical offensive feel, the Nets exploded 40 points in the first quarter, establishing a huge 17-point lead.
In the second quarter, the 76ers bench players helped the team narrow the point gap, but the Nets will want to win the game with full momentum, not only Irving and Durant continue to be hot.
Cesscurie, Drummond, Brown, Mills and other role players have also stepped up to solve the problem and played a very tough defense, which allows the team to establish a 21-point lead at the end of halftime.
Easy to fight again, the Nets continued the fiery performance of the second quarter, plus Irving and KD all rested to return to the game.
This further widened the point difference by the Nets, and in the face of the imminent collapse of the situation, the 76ers also replaced Harden and Embiid, who still tried to create fouls through killing, but after the fierce confrontation in the first half, Embiid's physical fitness declined seriously.
Coupled with the delay in opening the outside line, the Nets began to unscrupulously wrap Embiid, successively sent hot pot hats, a wave of directly take away the game, the point difference was once pulled to 36 points, the last quarter was also reduced to garbage time, and finally the Nets won the 76ers 129-100, winning the focus battle.
Throughout the game, the 76ers who played at home did not play any competitiveness, the defensive end was broken by Durant and Irving, the offensive end was full of mistakes, even the basic passing ball was not fluent, and could only rely on Embiid's free throws to maintain the situation.
In the Nets, Durant and Irving face their old teammate Harden without mercy, Durant shot 10 of 17, efficiently bombed 25 points, 14 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals and 1 block, and his personal plus-minus was the highest +34 in the game.
Irving also played well, playing 30 minutes, shooting 8-of-17 from the field, 5-of-11 three-pointers, and contributing 22 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal and 2 blocks.
In addition, among the role players, Cescuri's performance is undoubtedly the best, as a veteran of the 76ers, he successfully hand-bladed the old master.
Curry played 27 minutes, shooting 10-of-14 and 4-of-8 from three-point range, and blasted down perfect stats of 24 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists and 5 steals.
As harden's addition to the trade with Ben Simmons, Curry proved with his actions that his role may be even greater than Ben Simmons.
In contrast, Harden exposed all his problems in this focus battle, and his undefeated golden body after joining Philadelphia was also broken.
Unlike the Nets' momentum of winning up and down, Harden looks a little shrinking in the face of such a powerful game, and has no desire to win at all, which is also a consistent problem in Harden's career so far, and when facing the big scene, he often can't deliver better performances.
Only 3 of 17 shots in the whole game, got 11 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, and also made 4 mistakes, which is also Harden's consistent problem, it seems that the tandem ability is good, but in the face of high-pressure defense, often unable to hand over a stable tandem, often high errors, which also led to his relatively weak performance at key moments.
Fortunately, this is only a regular season game, and after the 76ers lost the game, the team still ranked third in the East, and the Nets only ranked eighth in the East.
And the Nets' remaining games, only 4 away games Irving can play, the team is still facing a lot of pressure.
However, the 76ers have also exposed a lot of problems in this game, if they face strong opponents in the playoffs, whether it is Rivers or Harden, it may affect the performance of key games and key moments, or Embiid needs to take on greater responsibility and prepare in advance.