CHARLOTTE – Joel Embiid believes that it is no surprise that the Philadelphia 76ers are on a hot streak, as the team are working well together and setting the tone early in games with aggressive play.
The centre maintained his dominant scoring streak on Friday to help the Sixers extend their National Basketball Association (NBA) winning run to seven games with a 121-82 road thrashing of the Charlotte Hornets.
Embiid, one of the front-runners for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award, rattled in another 38 points. He is averaging 35 points a game in March and has not scored fewer than 31 in eight games during the month.
His latest tally came on 16-of-21 shooting, with 13 rebounds and five assists.
“Home or road, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“We know what it takes offensively and defensively, everybody doing their job… tonight we did it as a team.
“One of our goals was to come in from the start and set the tone and not play in the fourth quarter. I’m glad we did it. We came out aggressive, starting on defence (in the second half). We did a pretty good job in the first half but we knew we had a little more left and we tried to corrected the mistakes that we had made.”
James Harden had a rare off-night with only 11 points after shooting four-of-15 from the field, but the Sixers still had far too much firepower and defensive savvy for a Charlotte team who are second from the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
Tobias Harris added 18 points while Tyrese Maxey chipped in with 13.
Sixers coach Doc Rivers was pleased that his team emerged with a clean bill of health.
“It’s just good to get the game over with and be healthy,” said Rivers, who also took satisfaction from the Sixers’ ruthless performance.
“It just shows that we are focused, and we are showing up and playing.
