The NBA regular season continues, with the East and West ushering in a strong dialogue, with the 76ers sitting at home against the Nuggets, a game that has become a focus battle due to Embiid and Jokic's active first center battle.
The Nuggets have been plagued by injuries this season, with second-in-command Murray and third-in-command Porter Jr. absent for a long time, but jokic is good enough, and the team also occupies the sixth position in the West, but because the team relies too much on Jokic, the overall performance is inevitably ups and downs and fluctuations.
On the other hand, the 76ers, after Harden joined, the team once played a dominant performance, but after losing to the Nets, Harden suddenly lost his hand, although the last game beat the First Magic of the East, but the process was extremely difficult.
As soon as the game began, Embiid and Jokic began to fight, and then the 76ers started more and blossomed, establishing an early lead.
The two teams then fell into a brief tug-of-war, after which the 76ers took the lead in finding the feel on the outside, and the point difference was pulled to double digits in the middle of the section.
After the Nuggets were forced to call a timeout, the situation stabilized slightly, but at the end of the quarter, Philadelphia's feel improved again, and the 76ers further widened the point difference to 15 points and successfully maintained the point difference until the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the Nuggets finally began to find form after a break, and with the 76ers replacing the bench, the Nuggets began to close the point difference.
But the Nuggets' overall pace of chasing points was slightly slower, and with the return of Embiid and Harden in the middle of the quarter, the point difference was once again widened.
Fortunately, the Nuggets maintained enough patience to set off a wave of counterattacks at the end of the quarter, which allowed the team to force the point difference to single digits in one go, and by the end of the half, the Nuggets had forced the point difference to just 5 points.
The Nuggets continued their fiery performance in the second half of the second quarter, successfully equalizing with Jokic's two points with two points left in the third quarter.
The two teams have since tangled, with the 76ers regaining the lead under Embiid and Harden, but never being able to pull the point gap back into double digits.
On the other hand, the Nuggets, despite falling into a disadvantage again, still maintained resilience, and again and again forced the score, and at the end of the third quarter, the 76ers held a seven-point lead.
Entering the final quarter of the scramble, the Nuggets bench suddenly broke out, especially the substitute interior Cousins, who hit two three-pointers in succession, directly helping the Nuggets fill the point difference.
The two teams then got into a fight, and the Nuggets gradually gained the advantage on the court until the main players such as Embiid and Harden returned to tie the score in the last two minutes.
Helplessly, the 76ers' outside line was inaccurate at a critical moment, and the Nuggets had a succession of Strange soldiers to stand up, and finally the Nuggets defeated the 76ers 114-110, staging a 19-point reversal.
Throughout the game, Embiid played 36 minutes, 11-of-20 shooting, and had 34 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 2 blocks.
Harden shot 6 of 11, 1 of 4 three-pointers, 11 of 12 free throws, and handed over a quasi-triple-double stat of 24 points, 9 boards, 11 assists and 1 cap.
In addition, Maxi 19 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists, Harris 10 points and 7 rebounds, except for these four starters, the 76ers did not score in double figures, the highest score on the bench was 2 of 12 in the whole game, he scored 8 points, which also exposed Philadelphia's biggest problem, that is, after the completion of the trade, the team's bench depth was seriously insufficient.
In addition, Harden's performance at key moments has also become the focus of media attention after the game, and Harden only shot 2 times in the entire fourth quarter of the game.
To this end, Harden said after the game that he was still looking for a balance, and he preferred to create opportunities for his teammates, because the 76ers have many scorers, and it will obviously take some time to find the balance.
Coach Rivers also took the initiative to defend Harden after the game, bluntly saying that it was his own problem and failed to put Harden in the right position.