The Philadelphia 76ers returned to action on Friday night with a big win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The biggest story of the night was James Harden, who made his debut with the team after another tumultuous exit from his previous team. The Beard had a solid outing, warning the league about his duo with Joel Embiid.
The Sixers showed their quality on the court with the shooting guard, dismantling the always complicated Timberwolves. Embiid had another great night, posting 34 points and 10 rebounds, while Harden finished the game with 27 points, 8 rebounds and 12 assists.
It was a clear 133-102 victory, but the T-Wolves tried to beat them by using many tactics, including some trash talking. Patrick Beverley understood the assignment and tried to get under Embiid’s skin. The defensive specialist didn’t like that Embiid was getting special treatment from referees and dissed him, saying that he has no championships or MVP to get those benefits.
“Call the foul on Joel Embiid, it’s okay… He not a champion and he got no MVPs,” Bev told a ref, according to Brendan Hedtke.
"Call the foul on Joel Embiid, it's okay… He not a champion and he got no MVPs" – Pat Bev to the officials.
— Brendan Hedtke (@B_HedtkeNBA) February 26, 2022
The official wasn’t having any of that and told the guard to keep it quiet while he did his job.
“Come on man. Sit down,” the referee replied.
The ref tilts his head, looks over at him and goes, "Come on man. Sit down."
— Brendan Hedtke (@B_HedtkeNBA) February 26, 2022
He was just trying to mess up with Embiid and his teammates, but the new-look Sixers didn’t care about that. They went off, dismantled the Timberwolves, and got another win to continue their remarkable 2021/22 NBA season.
The Embiid-Harden duo kicked things off the right way, and that only means danger for the rest of the East and the league. They have a talented duo that can take them to the Finals, but we need to sit and wait how well they mesh for the rest of the season. Still, it doesn’t look like they will have a hard time figuring each other out, so the Sixers must be happy about their present and future.
