News_Sports

7 Foot Embiid leads 76ers to avert a sweep by Kyrie Irving’s Boston Celtics

21/03/2019
opera

Joel Embiid collected 37 points and a career-high 22 rebounds to go along with a late key block on Kyrie Irving as the host Philadelphia 76ers averted a season sweep by the Boston Celtics with a 118-115 victory on Wednesday night.

Embiid also made a personal-best 20 free throws (on 21 attempts). Jimmy Butler scored 15 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter for the 76ers, who have won six in a row overall.

Irving scored 16 of his 36 points in the first quarter for the Celtics, who fell short against Philadelphia for just the third time in the teams’ past 20 regular-season meetings.

Al Horford scored 22 points and Terry Rozier added 20 points off the bench for Boston, who saw guard Marcus Smart receive a flagrant-2 foul and an immediate ejection less than a minute into the third quarter following a two-handed shove into the back of Embiid.

The Celtics also saw a nine-point lead evaporate in the fourth quarter with Butler draining a trio of three-pointers in a three-and-a-half -minute stretch to forge a tie at 105.

awesome oh yeah GIF

The teams were deadlocked at 113 with 1:17 left before Ben Simmons’ driving lay-up and subsequent foul shot regained the lead for the 76ers with 40.8 seconds remaining.

Irving’s floating jumper was blocked by Embiid with 30 seconds remaining, and Butler drilled a jumper at the other end to push the advantage to 118-113 and ice the game with 5.5 seconds left.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *