As the Los Angeles Lakers were down by double digits late Wednesday in the first quarter, LeBron James put his head down and drove to the cup to try and save some momentum after the quarter-break.
On the brink of him awaits the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid, who swung an easy 2 for James, creating a transitional opportunity that completed former Lakers guard Danny Green with a 3 from the top of the key to place Philly. at 16 op.
It was the kind of series that could have made viewers talk about believing the Sixers are legal contenders this season.
There was the 7-foot, 280-pound MVP candidate in Embiid, who anchored Philadelphia’s top five defense and filled one of the biggest rounds in the history of the game in James – with an MVP campaign of his own – which led to a quick break 3 of a three-time champion. Though the 76ers’ new coach with his own championship evidence, Doc Rivers, oversaw the action from the sidelines.
That, of course, is not to say that the rest of the night was so dominant for the Sixers. LA used a 13-0 run late in the fourth quarter to take the lead with 11.2 seconds grabbing a nice drive from James to Anthony Davis, and it looks like the Lakers are starting their perfect 10-0 start until the season can retain. go. Philly responded, however, with Tobias Harris trailing Alex Caruso by three seconds to win, 107-106.
“They know what they’re looking for,” Lakers boss Marc Gasol told reporters at a video conference after the game, complimenting the Sixers’ leadership. “I think all the players have accepted their roles and want to excel in them. They know what they want to live offensively and what they want to live defensively for.”
Gasol, who had a reputation as a stopper of the Embiid competition – the Sixers’ big man was just 3-5 in his career against Gasol before Wednesday, averaging 10.6 points on 30% shooting in those matches. do not disrupt “The Process” this time.
Embiid finishes with 28 points, six rebounds, four assists and two blocks. Meanwhile, Gasol was made ineffective and gave up 15 of the points while guarding Embiid when he was 5-for-9 off the field and 4-for-5 for the errors in possession when the Lakers’ newly acquired starting center got the job. defend him.
“They played through him, and they played a lot through him, and they’re going to keep feeding him,” Gasol said. “It’s not like they’re going to feed someone else. They know by whom they are going to play and how they are going to play, and they are comfortable with that.
“So, we’ll look at it, and we’ll get better.”
One win in January does not shift the balance of power for the entire league. The Sixers will still have to prove that they are better than the new big try of the Brooklyn Nets, the cohesive core of the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks with the double MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo – just to get out of the Eastern Conference.
But a rematch of the 2001 NBA Finals between LA and Philadelphia is certainly a possibility 20 years later.
Wednesday’s victory made the Sixers 10-1 at home this season – they are now 41-5 at the Wells Fargo Center since the start of last season – and improved their overall record to 13-6, the best in the East . They let Embiid play the best basketball of his career. They have Ben Simmons, a robust defender with the size to harass James. Green, Harris and Seth Curry – who did not even play on Wednesday – hit from the outside throughout.
In the meantime, much remains to be done, but it is not far-fetched.
“I think it’s a very good team they put together,” James said of the 76ers. ‘Give a lot of honor [general manager] Elton Brand and the things they do here. Clearly, Doc has always won wherever he has been. We’ll see if the season goes on. There are going to be a lot of teams playing basketball in the Eastern Conference Championship. I know they believe they are one of the teams. ‘
The Lakers, even though they are the defending champions, are already a proven contender. However, last year’s team that proved he could handle Jusuf Nurkic, Nikola Jokic and Bam Adebayo en route to the title was one of the biggest teams in the league.
The Lakers changed in the off-season – they swapped JaVale McGee for the Cleveland Cavaliers and had Dwight Howard sign as Embiid’s backup, replacing them with Gasol and Montrezl Harrell.
“We are different,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said of the shift in the center. “And otherwise it doesn’t have to be better or worse. I would like to think that we want to be a better basketball team this year than we were last year when we won the championship.”
Whether these Lakers are better than the 2019-20 Lakers remains to be seen. Despite Wednesday’s results, they already believe they are better than the Sixers in 2020-21.
“I think our team and our team that we have is capable of beating this team in a series of seven games,” Davis said.