It won’t always be this easy without Embiid

For one night the Sixers had no trouble replacing the injured Joel Embiid’s 30 points and 11 boards.

But you can’t expect it to be as easy as it was Sunday when the San Antonio Spurs gave up in the third quarter of a 134-99 loss to the Sixers at the Wells Fargo Center in front of 3,100 fans.

The Spurs also played without their leading scorer, DeMar DeRozan, who averages 20.3 points and 7.3 helpers. He was given the day off after funeral services for his late father.

The real test is Wednesday when the Eastern Conferenceleading Sixers (27-12) host the Milwaukee Bucks and center Giannis Antetokounmpo, who are two games behind.

That said, the Sixers took care of business to move one full game ahead of the Brooklyn Nets (2613), who were idle Sunday, in the ever-tightening Eastern Conference race.

Tobias Harris tallied 23 points, nine rebounds and seven assists to spark the Sixers. Danny Green added 16 points and five boards against his previous employer, making 4-for-7 beyond the arc. Seth Curry, who was averaging

a dozen points, scored 21, drilling three 3-pointers.

“We’ve got to win,” said Ben Simmons, who registered 14 points, nine assists and four boards after sitting out time to quarantine

due to COVID protocols. “We’ve got to hold it down. We have all the pieces. You saw it tonight. We know we can win these games. We’ve got the guys in this room to do it. Hopefully, Joe rests up and we keep winning.”

This season the Sixers are 3-5, including Sunday, without Embiid, who injured

a knee last week.

Green scored 11 of the Sixers’ first 14 points, nailing all three of his threepoint attempts.

It was all downhill from there for San Antonio. The Sixers outscored the Spurs, 46-21, in the third quarter.

Harris applauded the fans for their support.

“It was awesome,” Harris

said. “From the minute we came out of the huddle the energy they provided it was long overdue to have our fans here. For us that was an added boost. It was awesome for us to go out there and perform like that tonight, but to also do it in front of our fans was just exciting. We loved every moment of it.”