Great stuff from the Sixers, who clobbered the Mavs 113 to 95 to go 3-1 on their second long road trip in recent weeks.

Now they get Brooklyn at home on Wednesday night, holding a half-game lead over a Nets team that did not play on Monday in Minnesota, after that matchup was postponed because of the unrest that resulted from the shooting of Daunte Wright.

We don’t know when that game will be played, but assuming it’s not rescheduled for tonight, Tuesday, then the Nets will not have played since losing to the Lakers on Saturday night. It would be two rested teams playing for first place in what amounts to the biggest Sixers game of the year.

But a quick word about this squad’s road success –

They are 17-12 away from home, which is the best mark in the Eastern Conference. Remember when they were terrible on the road? They couldn’t win anything last season, going 12-26 in arenas not named the Wells Fargo Center. They were 20-21 two years ago and 22-19 three years back, so if they continue at this pace, with seven road games remaining, they will finish with their best road record in many, many years.

“That was one of our goals (to win on the road),” said Doc Rivers after the game. “We talked about it openly before the year started, that if we want to be what we want to be, we have to be a good road team. We’re going out on the road and taking care of business. We’re very serious about it. We won’t make a big deal of it, but we know winning on the road is hard, and we’re doing that. That’s a good sign for our team.”

Joel Embiid, not settling

36 points for Joel Embiid in 26 minutes. He only shot 17 field goals.

That, my friends, is a model of efficiency. We’re talking about a guy who went 14-15 from the foul line in a very short amount of time and pulled down seven rebounds while turning the ball over just once.

And the absolutely insane thing is that he’s scoring in a variety of ways, at all three levels. Just look at this work of art right here:

Ridiculous. He is hitting shots that Michael Jordan and Dirk Nowitzki used to hit.

Here, I’ll log all ten of his made baskets:

  1. euro step over Boban
  2. 15-foot pullup jumper
  3. SLOB catch-and-shoot three pointer
  4. one vs. three post up (and 1)
  5. dream shake into turnaround J
  6. post up over a 6’7″ combo forward
  7. 14-foot baseline jumper
  8. delay action into pull-up three pointer
  9. Nowitzki back-foot pull up baseline jumper
  10. post up into turnaround baseline fadeaway

I hope people realize how incredible this stuff is. I think we’ve become a little bit numb to it, since we’re used to seeing it all the time, but the ways in which this man scores the basketball? It’s amazing. He’s seven feet tall! He is not supposed to be able to move like this. He’s out there gliding like a small forward and flaring to the three point line like a shooting guard. He’s muscling through guys in the post, drawing fouls, and shooting 85.2% from the line.

“When we lost in the bubble and I was working out, we really focused on just working on my game off the dribble, and that’s helped a lot,” said Embiid. “I never saw myself just being a post player. I’ve always seen myself being like a Kevin Durant. Moving all over the place, shooting off the dribble, handling the ball, crossover, posting up.”

It sounds ridiculous in theory, that Embiid would be playing like Durant in 2021, but he absolutely is. The diversity in his offensive game is a sight to behold, and he’s also doing it without over-thinking the game.

“I thought he played in attack mode all night and didn’t settle,” said Rivers. “You know he felt the last couple games he’d been settling. I thought he was phenomenal in how aggressive he was, and he made the right plays, made great plays out of the double, then they didn’t want to double and Joel got what he wanted.”

With all due to respect to Nikola Jokic, Embiid is the MVP, and I’m not saying that because this is a Philly sports blog. When he’s been out on the floor, he’s been consistently dominant on both sides, while Jokic’s game is significantly tilted to the offensive side. The only shame would be if Embiid is penalized by voters for missing a chunk of games, since he’s only played 36 right now and Jokic is up to 54, but if the Sixers finish first in the East with Embiid staying on the floor, and Denver finishes 4th in the West, where they are right now, then the difference in games played shouldn’t matter.

Growing a bomber

Furkan Korkmaz shot 13-29 from three during this four-game road trip. That’s 44.8%.

Not only is he hitting his shots, but he just looks more comfortable doing it, and seems like he’s playing with a smoothness and assertiveness that hadn’t been there for portions of the season.

“He’s been great. He has great rhythm,” said Rivers of Korkmaz. “He’s doing less. I thought he went through that stretch where he was trying to do too much with the ball, and now he’s not. He’s taking the shot when he has it, those straight-line drives, which are phenomenal for us. He’s not dancing with the ball anymore. We thought he got into that and it threw him off. He’s taking the shots he should take and our guys are finding him.”

Furkan’s shot chart from Monday night:

There were a couple instances of trying to do too much, and a couple of wayward deep threes, but that series of shots he hit on the right side were all very silky, a lot of flashing to the line, slipping screens, and then firing catch-and-shoot looks. This is still the same guy who went for 34 and 31 in back-to-back games last year. Same guy who went for 40 in the Summer League. It’s just a matter of pulling it out of him on a consistent basis and keeping his confidence and assertiveness at a high level, because when he gets going, it’s really fun to watch.