Big third quarter leads Sixers to win over Nets

The Sixers are just a different team when their full strength starting five is available.

The Sixers jumped back into the win column with a victory over the Brooklyn Nets 124-108 at home on Saturday night. The win moved them to 17-7 on the year overall and a spotless 13-0 when Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Danny Green, Tobias Harris, and Joel Embiid are all penciled into the opening lineup.

Simmons returned from a one game absence due to a tight calf and came two assists shy of a triple double, finishing with 16 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists. He did have six turnovers, but the team still managed a +14 with him on the court. Harris scored 21 on an efficient 10-for-16 shooting and grabbed 12 boards of his own. And Embiid continued his scoring tirade, going for 33. Over his last 13 outings, the big man is averaging 32.2 points, and that includes a 9-point clunker against Miami.

Danny Green added 11 on 4-for-8 shooting, including 3-for-7 on threes. Finally, Curry showed some life—after back-to-back scoreless showings, the 30-year-old guard dropped 11 in 26 minutes. He isn’t back to where he was in the very beginning of the year, but it must hve felt great for him just to see the ball go through the hoop a few times.

On the whole, it was a solid bounce back performance for the entire team after Thursday’s miserable defeat at the hands of the Blazers. The Sixers were efficient from the field, shooting 51.1% from the floor overall and 37.0% from beyond the arc. The main takeaway was their dominance inside—Philadelphia outscored Brooklyn 62-32 in the paint and completely owned the glass 51-34. Fittingly, they also held a significant advantage in second chance points, 22-9.

Granted, the Nets were missing both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in this one—Irving with a sprained right index finger, and Durant for health and safety protocols. That left James Harden as the lone active member of Brooklyn’s new look Big 3. His surface level stats looked great—26 points, 8 rebounds, 10 assists—but he finished a -18 on the night, and it just didn’t ever feel like he was fully engaged.

The Nets’ limitations in non-Harden shot creation were exposed with the two supporting stars absent. Joe Harris chipped in 14 points and provided a floor-spacing threat every time he crossed half court, and former Sixers Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Landry Shamet combined for 35 points and seven threes, but removing Harden’s brilliant playmaking left the rest of the Nets roster with just 11 assists against 15 turnovers.

The game felt largely drama-free for the most part. The first half was a relatively even affair with either side ever leading by more than 8 points, but it didn’t really feel like the Sixers were fully comfortable right away. At the break, Philadelphia held a 59-57 lead. In that regard, it was eerily similar to the 57-57 halftime tie against the Blazers two nights prior.

This time, though, the third quarter was a different story. The Sixers offense clicked into gear behind the overwhelming talent of their starters. Embiid led the way with 14 in the quarter, while Green, Curry, Harris and Simmons contributed 27. The defense wasn’t airtight in giving up 30 points and allowing the Nets to shoot 52.4% in the period, but they did force 6 turnovers and nearly tripled Brooklyn in boards, 14-5.

The game was sealed with five minutes to go in the quarter, when a Tobias Harris 20-footer ignited a 14-0 burst. Green scored 8 points by himself in a 40-second span, and the Sixers were well on their way. The Nets finally stopped the scoreless stretch on a Shamet pullup courtesy of Harden, but Philadelphia still carried the momentum into the opening minute of the fourth. Over little more than six minutes, a 79-79 tie became a 107-89 rout in the Sixers’ favor. They were able to turn things over to the bench in that final frame, with Shake Milton and Furkan Korkmaz scoring 16 of the team’s final 22.

Philadelphia will get two full days off before its next game, when it kicks off a 4-game road trip against the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night at 10 p.m. The Kings (12-11) have turned things around in big way after a rough start to the season, winning four in a row and 7 of 8 overall. Starting point guard De’Aaron Fox appears to be transitioning into genuine superstardom. The fourth-year veteran is averaging 23.0 points and 6.5 assists on the year, and during the team’s recent hot streak he’s been even better, going for 27.0 and 7.8.