PHILADELPHIA — Joel Embiid had 30 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists to help the Philadelphia 76ers rout LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers 138-94 on Monday night.
The reigning NBA MVP, Embiid notched his sixth career triple-double with 2 minutes left in the third quarter. It was Embiid’s first of the season and his seventh career game with 10-plus assists.
Embiid’s anticipated showdown with James never really materialized. James scored 18 points in 29 minutes but nothing he did could make a dent in the 76ers’ lead. He has now played more minutes than any player in NBA history, with playoff time included.
Tyrese Maxey scored 31 points for the 76ers. Anthony Davis had 17 points and 11 rebounds for the Lakers.
Embiid sat out the entire fourth quarter and the 76ers still outscored the Lakers 40-14.
The 76ers opened the game 3-point happy and hit 13, a season high for a half, on 26 shots that let them stretch the lead to 25.
Maxey hit four. The Lakers, though, left any Sixer not named Maxey or Embiid open. Patrick Beverley hit three in the half and Marcus Morris Sr. went 3 for 3. Embiid buried one for a 64-39 lead.
The Lakers missed 7 of 10 3s in the half.
TRAIL BLAZERS 114, PACERS 110: Jerami Grant scored 34 points and Deandre Ayton had 22 points and 13 rebounds to power Portland to a victory over the Pacers in Indianapolis.
Malcolm Brogdon added 24 points for the Trail Blazers, including a game-sealing basket in the closing seconds.
Tyrese Haliburton led Indiana with 33 points. Bruce Brown, Myles Turner and Bennedict Mathurin each had 11, but the Pacers were slowed by 20 turnovers and 8-for-33 shooting from 3-point range.
Following a Portland turnover, Brown scored to cut the deficit to 112-110 before Brogdon’s driving 7-footer put the Trail Blazers ahead 114-110 with 6 seconds left. The Pacers’ Buddy Hield missed a long 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds remaining.
Rookie Scoot Henderson sank a 12-footer at the end of the third quarter to tie it at 83-all. The teams then traded the lead for the next few minutes. Grant put the Trail Blazers in the lead for good at 96-94 with a driving floater with 6:36 to play.
WIZARDS 126, PISTONS 107: Kyle Kuzma had 32 points and 12 rebounds as Washington ended a nine-game losing streak with a of the Detroit Pistons in Detroit in a battle of the NBA’s worst teams.
Washington (3-14) won for the first time since a 132-116 victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Nov. 8. The Pistons (2-15) have lost 14 straight after beating the Chicago Bulls 118-102 on Oct. 28.
Kuzma, playing in his home state, added eight assists while committing two turnovers. Deni Avdija and Danilo Gallinari scored 16 for the Wizards.
Cade Cunningham led the Pistons with 26 points and seven assists. Jalen Duren had 12 points and 14 rebounds.
NOTES
WARRIORS: Draymond Green defended his headlock of Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert last week that earned him an ejection and five-game suspension, which expired in time for the Warriors’ deciding in-season tournament game against the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday.
The league suspension came with a note that severity was “based in part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike acts,” a clause Green argues is unfair, referencing the retroactive one-game suspension he earned for an entanglement with LeBron James in the 2016 NBA Finals. The league implemented the Green-specific rule after he stepped on Kings’ Domantas Sabonis’ chest escaping his grasp during last season’s playoff series.
“To continue saying, ‘Oh, what he did in the past..’ I paid for those,” Green said after Warriors practice on Sunday. “I got suspended for Game 5 of the Finals. So you can’t keep suspending me for those actions.
“They’ve made it clear that they are going to hold everything against me that I’ve done before. That’s OK. I need to adjust where I see fit. Where my teammates see fit, where my coaches see fit. Where our front office sees fit. The people I care about, I trust, when I hear them say something, it means something to me.”
Green’s suspension stems from a scuffle between the Warriors and Timberwolves on Nov. 14 that started with Klay Thompson and Jaden McDaniels’ getting into it at center court. Green saw Gobert grab Thompson to pull him away from the scrum — something players concede breaks an unwritten rule not to put hands on an opposing player when breaking up a fight. Green saw that and pulled Gobert away.
“Anytime there is a situation and a teammate needs you to come to his defense, I’m going to come to their defense,” Green said. “Especially with someone I’ve been a teammate with for 12 years. That’s more than a teammate, that’s a brother. Things can be interpreted how people interpret them, I’m not here to judge people’s interpretations or change them. They are what they are. But for me, I will always be there for my teammates.”
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