Daily Times (Primos, PA)

Despite Beal’s record-tying 60, Sixers hold on for win

- By Dan Gelston

PHILADELPH­IA» Joel Embiid scored

38 points and the NBA-leading Philadelph­ia 76ers overcame a Washington record-tying 60-point performanc­e by Bradley Beal in a

141-136 win over the Wizards on Wednesday night.

The Sixers are an NBA-best 7-1 in coach Doc Rivers’ first season in Philadelph­ia.

“They pay me to take over the game, and they pay me to dominate,” Embiid said.

Embiid did just that in fourth, scoring 11 points to three for Beal.

Beal was stuffed on a layup and missed a 3-pointer inside the final minute, nearly coming up short of joining Golden State’s Stephen Curry as 60-point scorers this season. Curry scored a career-high 62 points on Sunday night.

Beal, who once scored 53 and 55 the just points in consecutiv­e games, sank a free throw with 4.4 seconds left to hit the mark. He went 20 of 25 from the floor, made 7 of 10 3-points and went 13 of 15 from the line to match former Wizard Gilbert Arenas for the franchise single-game mark.

“There’s no reason anybody should drop 60 on us,” Embiid said.

Beal was sensationa­l from the start, going 11 of 16 (four 3-pointers) from the floor in the first half for 32 points and joined Michael Jordan (34 points in 2001) and Arenas (33 points in 2006 and 30 in 2007) as Wizards to score 30 in half over the last 20 years.

He hit seven 3s and reached 57 points through three quarters, and that should have been enough to give the Wizards the lead. But Washington’s defense was atrocious in the first half. They gave up 82 points and trailed by as many as 21 points, Beal outscoring the rest of the Wizards.

“He can score a lot of points on any team on any given night, but he wants to lead us in victories,” coach Scott Brooks said.

Embiid again dominated after a rare slow start and continued his torrid early season run. He missed all six shots in the first quarter and scored one point. He then scored 14 in the second and helped the Sixers roll to a 19-point lead.

Embiid tossed in a fadeaway and made the free throw to give the Sixers a 131-127 lead. His second threepoint play in 90 seconds made it

134-131. He then buried a 3 to seal Philadelph­ia’s fifth straight win.

Seth Curry hit six straight

3-pointers in the first half and finished with 28 points.

RIVERS SPEAKS

Rivers used his voice to condemn the riots in Washington much in the same way he denounced racial injustice in the NBA bubble.

Rivers again decried the riotous mob Wednesday in Washington, though he cautioned, “democracy will prevail.”

“I’ll say it because I don’t think a lot of people want to: Could you imagine today if those were all Black people storming the Capitol and what have happened,” Rivers asked. “That to me is a picture worth a thousand words for all of us to see. It’s something for us to reckon with, again, no police dogs turned on people, no billy clubs hitting people. People peacefully being escorted out of the Capitol. It shows you can disperse a crowd peacefully, I guess.”

Rivers added: “As an older black male, I’ve seen police dogs being unleashed on people, and then you see today where there’s nothing, and so that’s an emotion that I have, right?”

 ?? CHRIS SZAGOLA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Joel Embiid, right, dunks on Washington’s Thomas Bryant, left, during the first half on Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center.
CHRIS SZAGOLA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Joel Embiid, right, dunks on Washington’s Thomas Bryant, left, during the first half on Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center.

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