The Sixers beat the depleted Pelicans 117-107 on Tuesday night. It was ugly in the first half, but credit to Tobias Harris for playing lights out in order to keep the deficit manageable. Meantime, Joel Embiid did his thing AGAIN, quietly pouring in 42 points while adding 14 rebounds, four assists, and four blocks. He only turned the ball over three times and finished 18-20 from the foul line while shooting 50% from the floor (12-24).

Get a load of this:

In the month of January, Embiid is averaging more points than minutes played. Isn’t that insane? He’s compiled 380 minutes over 12 games this month, which averages out to 31.6 MPG. Then if you take 414 points and divide by the same amount, you get 34.5, so he’s averaging more than one point per minute while on the floor this month. The Sixers are 9-3 during that stretch, a stretch in which Ben Simmons remains absent and other starters like Seth Curry and Danny Green have been unavailable via injury.

“Overall, I think they couldn’t guard him,” said Furkan Korkmaz of Embiid’s Tuesday night performance. “You don’t have to be so smart to say that, but whenever he has the ball it feels like he knows what he is doing. He doesn’t rush, he reads the game, he reads the floor, especially in the second half he knows that we expect some push from him. In the second half he was the one that set the tone, but I think Tobias stepped up huge too, those two I really think took the game.”

Maybe the best compliment Embiid can receive is from the guy who was tasked with defending him last night, and that was Willy Hernangomez.

“As a player, you always try to challenge yourself, cause you wanna play the best players every night,” the Spaniard said. “And (Tuesday) you know same as (Monday) I was watching all of the (film) of Embiid. I would always like to play against him, he’s one of the best centers in the league, if not the best. I was taught to be aggressive, make him work on the defensive side, and then try to attack him as well, you know he’s gotta guard me as well. I think I tried to do my best, honestly, I’m exhausted and he still got 40. But he’s a one-of-a-kind player, it’s always a pleasure to play against him. I learn in many ways you know? And he gave me confidence as well. You know if I say, ‘I can do that against Embiid why not against the next body?’ So, I’m just ready for the next game.”

When an opponent says that it’s a pleasure to play against you, that’s probably the ultimate sign of respect. Imagine guarding a guy who goes for 42 and then you give them all of the credit in the world, telling everybody it was a learning experience. That’s a pretty cool quote to see, if we’re being honest.

I’ve said this before, but I think the most impressive thing about Embiid this year is less about his raw scoring, because we saw that last year. We saw the steps he took in becoming a multi-level scorer who could iso and post and shoot three pointers and also hit ridiculous Dirk Nowitzki one-foot baseline jumpers. The next step for Joel was reading the game at an elite level, and he’s now doing that. His usage rate is second in the NBA. He is averaging a career-high 4.7 assists per 36 minutes and a career-low 3.2 turnovers. He is throwing passes out of double teams that look like Nikola Jokic passes:

He’s also ramped up his trips to the free throw line after starting slower in that area to begin the season. He’s now getting to the line 11.8 times per game during the month of January, which gets him easy points and puts other teams in foul trouble. He’s cut back on his three-point shooting slightly and is doing more work down around the basket, as you can tell from from this shot plot filtered to show only January shot attempts:

You see he’s pretty much red hot from every spot on the floor except the corners, where he rarely ventures, and that mid-range section off to the right side, which is not his preferred side. Most of his face-ups take place on the other side of the floor, where he’s consistently at league average or just above it.

“Great player playing really well, really focused, being a great leader for our guys,” said Doc Rivers after the win.” At halftime he’s the first guy who raises his hand (and says) ‘It’s on me, it’s on me, I’ve gotta play better defense.’ I mean he’s just been very good, it’s great for me.”

At some point, you kind of wonder what else there is to say about Embiid’s dominance. It feels like we’ve been over it so many times before. I just hope people don’t take it for granted. The Ben Simmons shit is annoying, and the blown leads can be bothersome, but the bottom line is that this team is only a few games out of first place because they have a superstar running the show and playing his best basketball ever. This is one of the best individual stretches we’ve seen in Philadelphia sporting history.