The Philadelphia 76ers’ last game wasn’t anything to brag about.
But it was a win, and one that might be a sign that the team is getting better.
The Sixers had to battle back from an 11-point deficit in the final 7 1/2 minutes to edge the struggling Sacramento Kings 113-111 on Thursday night. They hope that gives them some momentum as they host the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday night.
“We got lucky,” Philadelphia head coach Nick Nurse said. “But it’s a line drive in the box score. It’s a win and we’ll take it.”
The Sixers needed 40 points, including a last-second tie-breaking layup, from Tyrese Maxey and 37 points from Joel Embiid to get the win. The triumph was significant because it came two days after a 139-122 win over visiting Milwaukee, giving Philadelphia consecutive home victories for the first time since Dec. 12 and 20.
“It felt like a long time,” Maxey said. “That’s an achievement. We’re trying to get better. We’ve gotten a little bit better. We’re going to keep trying to do better.
“Sometimes in the fourth quarter you buckle down, you get stops and you win the game. That’s really an improvement for us honestly. There have been times when we just let those games slip out of our hands and we lost.”
Nurse said ideally his team will get better balance in its scoring and not have to lean so heavily on Maxey and Embiid.
“We need to worry about the 76ers doing what we’re capable of doing,” Nurse said. “Playing a little bit for the bigger picture, executing and worrying more about us than who we’re playing.”
The Pelicans also have shown improvement of late. They have won three of their past four, including a 114-106 home victory against Memphis on Friday, since interim head coach James Borrego changed his starting lineup by going without a true point guard.
The insertion of forward Saddiq Bey into the lineup in place of rookie point guard Jeremiah Fears has made the starting lineup bigger, more physical and better defensively. That likely led to the success over the past week, which also included a three-game road trip in which New Orleans defeated the Grizzlies and San Antonio before a loss to Oklahoma City.
“Ultimately to win in this league you have to defend,” Borrego said. “In order to defend you have to have size, physicality or elite rim protection. We’re working on the rim protection, but that first group is bigger and it’s being physical.”
Each member of the starting frontcourt scored more than 20 points Friday, as Bey and rookie center Derik Queen scored 22 each and Zion Williamson added 21. It was Queen’s ninth game of 20 or more points, but first since Dec. 27.
The Pelicans used a 14-0 run to complete a 35-15 edge in the third quarter, which turned the game in their favor.
“We had great balance on both sides of the ball in the third quarter,” Borrego said.
The coach credited Fears for having a positive attitude while coming off the bench since the lineup change. Both he and fellow lottery pick Queen have been selected to compete in the Rising Stars game on All-Star Weekend next month in Inglewood, Calif.
