The Brooklyn Nets were boiling mad about being disrespected on many fronts in their minds by the Philadelphia 76ers before they played Game 3 of their first-round series. However, the Sixers had bigger worries as big man Joel Embiid was out with knee soreness.
Before the game, a Nets fan not happy with perceived slights from Ben Simmons made a funny meme. In the game, the Brooklyn fans gave it to Simmons even worse than Philly fans did last Saturday.
An insulted Simmons apparently is the best kind of Simmons.
With big games from Simmons, Tobias Harris, J.J. Redick and … Boban Marjanovic? (Yup, Bobi was the man) the Philadelphia 76ers rolled to a 131-115 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday night at the Barclays Center.
The Sixers now hold a 2-1 lead over the Nets in the best-of-seven series. Game 4 is back in Brooklyn on Saturday at 3 PM E.T.
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Playing without Embiid (who was ruled out just minutes before the start with knee soreness), was a major gut punch for the Sixers, particularly on the defensive end. The Sixers struggle to stop the Nets athletic wing players with Embiid patrolling the middle; to play a whole 48 minutes without ‘The Process’ seemed to open up things for the Nets on offense.
With their defense damaged, the Sixers simply overwhelmed the Nets with too much firepower.
Holding a seven-point lead entering the fourth quarter, the Sixers kept pouring in the points and the Nets could not keep up. Coach Brett Brown emptied his bench with two minutes to go.
Brown started Greg Monroe, who missed a lot of bunnies he has made in the past, but Marjanovic was a revelation, scoring 14 points before fouling out in the fourth period.
It looked like the game would be a repeat of Game 2, when the Sixers blew out the Nets in the third quarter. They took as much as a 18-point lead in the period but Tobias Harris then had to leave with his fourth foul and things unraveled with a torrent of bad decisions on offense and defense. The Sixers were still able to take a 97-90 lead into the final quarter.
After a real slow start, trailing 9-2, the Sixers got their act together. The 76ers were up by 10 points in the first quarter and held a 32-24 lead at the end of the period.
Caris LeVert went off in the second period, scoring the Nets’ first 14 points and finished with 19 in the half.
The Sixers still kept scoring, though, and at halftime went into the locker room with a 65-59 lead. Tobias Harris led the 76ers with 16 points followed by Ben Simmons’ 14 and J.J. Redick chipped in with 10.
Embiid’s status for Saturday’s game will probably be another game-time decision. Most concerning is that after two days of rest his balky knee was not well enough to play.
The loss must be a disheartening one for Brooklyn. On their home court, and the opponent missing their best player, they were not competitive in the end.
And, in the end, Ben Simmons got the last laugh on Jared “0 points scored” Dudley.