The Philadelphia 76ers, on the second game of Joel Embiid’s two-game suspension suffer their first loss of the season.
Devin Booker is a fantastic scorer who boasts a 70-point performance to his resume, and yet tonight may have been his most impressive showing. Booker poured in 40 points on only 19 shots while chipping in four rebounds and three assists.
The Philadelphia 76ers had several strong performers with Furkan Korkmaz, Tobias Harris, and Al Horford combining to score 76 points. Unfortunately, their other two starters, Ben Simmons and Josh Richardson, combined for only 14 points on 19 shots.
The game was close the entire way with no team ever securing a double-digit lead. After the first half Philadelphia lead the way by five points. Entering the fourth quarter that lead had dissipated and the teams entered tied at 82-82.
In the fourth quarter, Phoenix jumped out to an early lead by as many as seven points only to see Philadelphia answer back to bring the game tied at 102-102 with 3:02 remaining. However, Booker then proceeded to score the next five points before assisting a Kelly Oubre Jr. basket that pushed the Phoenix lead to six points with just over a minute remaining. That proved to be the winning basket as time simply ran out on a Philadelphia comeback attempt.
Philadelphia has become the last team to suffer a loss in the association, but will also be getting Embiid back as they head to the Utah Jazz on Wednesday looking to right the loss suffered to the hands of the upstart Phoenix Suns.