Getty Joel Embiid
Joel Embiid’s social media dominance is officially back, at least for one night. The Philadelphia 76ers center brought his trolling abilities back out to play and did so while giving a bit of love to teammate Jimmy Butler. Not surprisingly, Embiid’s decision to throw some shade at the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night didn’t fail to impress either.
I guess we shouldn’t be all that surprised that when Embiid returned to the trash talking game on Twitter that he hit the ground running. Following a dominant 42-point win over Butler’s old team, the Sixers young star gave arguably the best social media moment of the entire NBA season.
It was an honor to be part of the 3rd stringers and get a win against real NBA starters #TheProcess
If by some chance you missed the ending to Butler’s tenure with the Timberwolves, this is a reference to his infamous practice session which culminated in a huge blowup. During the practice, Butler apparently played with the third-stringers while facing the current starters in a scrimmage and led the reserves to a win.
Joel Embiid’s Monster Night in Limited Minutes
Joel Embiid‘s MVP-caliber season continued on in the 149-107 win as he wrapped up the night with 31 points, 13 rebounds, three assists, and one block. Embiid was also one of five Sixers players to knock down three or more 3-point attempts in this game while shooting 10-17 from the field and continuing his strong free throw shooting by going 7-8 from the stripe.
To make this stat line even more impressive, the Sixers star only played 27 minutes due to the fact that the game became a blowout so quickly. Philadelphia led 83-58 at halftime and never looked back from there.
Following Tuesday’s game, Embiid currently sits with averages of 27.0 points, 13.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 2.0 blocks per game. He’s shooting 48.8 percent from the field and averaging 33.5 minutes per game to start the year. It’s hard to argue that the 24-year-old doesn’t deserve at least some level of MVP consideration, even though it’ll almost certainly be impossible to top James Harden for the award this season.
All the Sixers Get in on Dominant Win
It’s not surprising that a team winning by 42 points was able to get the bench a decent amount of run. That was the case on this night, as the starters received some extra rest and Sixers coach Brett Brown went 12 players deep, using everyone in his arsenal. The end result was seven players scoring in double figures while all 12 players who touched the floor managed to score at least one point.
The Sixers shot 59.8 percent from the field and of the 12 players who saw action, nine of them finished with eight or more points. Philadelphia’s starting unit combined to knock down 14-25 from beyond the arc while the team as a whole shot 48.8 percent from 3-point range. When all was said and done, there’s a real argument to be made that this was the best all-around game the new-look Sixers have played thus far.
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