Joel Embiid led the Philadelphia 76ers to victory over the Detroit Pistons with a dominant performance. As a result, the center escalated its private feud with Andre Drummond in the social media even further.
Joel Embiid rarely makes a secret of the fact that he likes trash talk and certain private duels, and especially with Pistons-Center Andre Drummond, the Cameroonian has a “close friendship” for quite some time. After the last meeting between the two teams, Embiid had already said that he was in Drummond’s head – and in this game there was now, so to speak, the next proof of this.
Embiid was dominant right from the start on Saturday and presented the pistons with unsolvable problems, especially in the first half. Both Drummond and his backup Zaza Pachulia were fouls for fouls, driving Detroit to the white-hot heat – already at halftime Embiid had 32 points on his account, at the end 39 (and 17 rebounds). And especially his 23 free throws annoyed the pistons.
“It’s like playing with your hands on your back – you can’t touch anyone. That’s how it’s whistled at the moment,” said Drummond. “It’s hard to play like this.” Drummond had to fight Foul Trouble throughout the game and finally played only 21 minutes (8 points, 9 rebounds). “I don’t understand why the game was whistled like that,” said Dwane Casey, the pistons coach.
His team had rebelled once again. After Embiid’s outstanding first half, Philly led to the break with 22 points, but Detroit showed morale and fought on the shoulders of Blake Griffin (38 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists) at least within striking distance again. But in the end Griffin lacked support to win.
In the Sixers it was a bit different, even though Ben Simmons acted rather inconspicuously (9 points). But the bank in the person of J.J. Redick (16), Mike Muscala (14) and Landry Shamet (11) had some firepower.
The man of the day, however, was Embiid, who was satisfied after his sixth home win in the sixth game: “[Drummond] is a fun matchup. I feel like I dominate every game, especially against him.” Via Twitter he then followed up and claimed again that he would build “more properties” in Drummond’s head.