PHILADELPHIA – The reigning MVP entered a game Friday as the leading scorer in the NBA and on a 13-game streak of scoring 30 or more points.
But, wait, said Nick Nurse.
There’s more?
“I think so,” the Sixers’ coach was saying of Joel Embiid before a 121-111 victory over the Toronto Raptors. “Yes.”
Embiid will turn 30 in March and was on a pace to join Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor as the only players in league history to average at least 35 points and 10 rebounds for a season. He has posted career highs in scoring average, made field goals, free throws made, free throw percentage, offensive rebounds and assists. He’d also been averaging 1.1 steals, tying his career high.
So if the Chamberlain-Baylor Hall of Fame level is not his career destiny, then what other level is there for the two-time defending scoring champion to reach?
“I just think he can continue to go forward with the things he can do,” Nurse insisted. “He can do a lot of things. There’s a lot of things he can do yet that I don’t think we’ve seen on a consistent basis.”
Continuing his record pace Friday, Embiid did plenty, furnishing 31 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists as the Sixers improved to 20-8 with their eighth victory in their last nine games.
Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris led all scorers with 33 points apiece. It’s the first time since 1961 that three 76ers have scored 30 or more points in the same game, when Dolph Schayes, Hal Greer and Dick Barnett did so.
Pascal Siakam led Toronto, which remained stuffed at the bottom of the Atlantic Division at 11-17, with 31 points.
But as well as Embiid is performing, Nurse is convinced opposing coaches soon will test him with new defenses and challenges. Exactly what trickery has not been already been tried against the 10th-year veteran is unclear — Nurse tried plenty when he used to coach the Raptors, for one — but apparently they are coming.
By the way, warns Nurse, Maxey should be prepared for that, too.
”I think you are going to see different matchups and schemes thrown at them every game,” Nurse said. “Where they are going to improve is in how they handle all those, right? Some teams are trying to put size on Tyrese and size on Joel and then switch them. How are we going to handle that?
“Some teams are starting to blitz Tyrese a little more. You could go through a lot of things. There is a variety of schemes and stuff they are going to see.”
Embiid Friday became the first player since the ABA-NBA merger to tab at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in 13 straight games, breaking the record of 12 that had been held by Moses Malone and Shaquille O’Neal.
“Joel’s getting better,” Nurse said. “He’s got a ways to go yet.”
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As the Sixers completed the pre-Christmas portion of their season, typically, a checkpoint for NBA teams, the coach continues to suggest Maxey is a lead-guard-in-progress.
“For me, I still think Tyrese is just getting started on ‘running the team, organizing, having the ball’” Nurse said. “I think he is making really good strides with it. But I just think that needs time.”
Maxey entered the game with a 26.1 point scoring average, with about a 6-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio and as a 40 percent three-point shooter. And he had been running the team well enough to help Embiid fashion some history-challenging numbers.
Nurse, though, has consistently refused to declare the project complete.
“That needs time,” he said. “That needs different situations. That needs different game plans that you’ve got to fight through. You have to build up your tolerance for being able to handle that, both physically and mentally. I think that over the course of a game or a season or a playoff series, whatever it is, there’s a lot of growth there for him.”
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Much as Nurse is expecting more from Maxey and Embiid, Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic has seen enough to be a believer.
“They are producing every single night,” he said. “They create problems for every team throughout the league. But that’s the beauty of the game: When you have two guys like that, you go out and you find ways to compete. That’s what makes you better. That’s what makes this a beautiful game.”
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NOTES >> Patrick Beverley (right heel soreness) and De’Anthony Melton (left thigh contusion) were scratched. … Nico Batum and Mo Bamba were unavailable due to illness. … Despite being listed as ill on the injury report, Robert Covington logged 24 minutes but did not score. … Embiid, Maxey, Tobias Harris, Marcus Morris and Kelly Oubre started. … The Sixers will play at 8 Monday night in Miami.
