PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Seth Curry stepped up in Joel Embiid’s absence on Monday night, scoring 23 points — including several key buckets late — to lead the short-handed Philadelphia 76ers to a 113-103 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers.
Embiid, the team’s leading scorer and four-time All-Star, was out due to rest — his first missed game of the season. The 76ers also were without Tobias Harris (health and safety protocols), who was a late scratch, and lost starter Danny Green in the third quarter due to hamstring tightness but not before he scored 11 points.
It was the first of three games in four nights for Philadelphia, which has won three straight. Georges Niang added 21 points for the 76ers.
Norman Powell led the Trail Blazers with 22 points. Damian Lillard had 20 points and 10 assists and C.J. McCollum also had 20 points.
Niang’s three-point play broke an 86-all tie early in the fourth and started a 14-4 76ers run that ended when Niang converted another three-point play after being fouled by Lillard to make it 100-90 with 6:44 left.
Portland pulled within 104-101 with four minutes left on Lillard’s layup, Philadelphia netted the next seven and were ahead 111-101 on Curry’s 3-pointer with about two minutes to play, and then Curry put the game away with a driving layup that put Philadelphia up 10 with 1:06 left.
Embiid, Philadelphia’s oft-injured big man, has vowed to be a more consistent presence in the lineup after playing in just 51 games last season — a contributing factor to him finishing runner-up to Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets last season.
Embiid is averaging 21 points and 8.7 rebounds thus far, and was replaced in the starting lineup by Andre Drummond, who had 14 points and 15 rebounds.
Furkan Kokmaz had 15 points in filling in for Harris, who is averaging 19.8 points and 7.7 rebounds.
Ben Simmons (personal reasons) still isn’t with the 76ers although he did take part in the shootaround once again.
Lillard, who has gotten off to a relatively slow start, ended his streak of three straight games with at least 30 points against Philadelphia. He struggled in the first half, missing 9 of 11 shots and 6 of 7 from 3-point range, as Philadelphia entered halftime up 54-53. Lillard finished 7 of 20 from the field and 2 of 9 from 3-point range.
