The Philadelphia 76ers were able to pick up an important 118-109 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on the road on Wednesday, but it wasn’t the prettiest win.
Philadelphia committed 20 turnovers, 17 through the first three quarters, but they were still able to come away with the win thanks to their star duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden. While Embiid committed six of those turnovers and Harden had four, they were both terrific in order to lead the Sixers.
Embiid had 36 points and 18 rebounds with four blocks while Harden had 28 points, 12 assists, and six rebounds. Despite the turnovers, Philadelphia was able to come away with the win despite the issues taking care of the basketball.
“Careless with the basketball,” Harden told reporters. “Just us. They weren’t really pressuring us to where we had to make tough decisions. We’re just kicking the ball off our feet and doing uncharacteristic things. If we can control those things, especially early on earlier in our game, it’s a much different ballgame earlier, but all in all, we won, we move on.”
Normally, when a team commits as many turnovers as Philadelphia did, they don’t win that game. The Cavs attempted 10 more shots for the game as they had more looks at the rim, but it didn’t matter on Wednesday.
“Sloppy,” coach Doc Rivers added. “I thought we got stagnant there in the second quarter and in the first quarter, we had seven turnovers and we were shooting like 80% at that point. I just thought we were really sloppy, and on the road, you’re really lucky to win games like that. They had 10 more shots than us at halftime.”
While the Sixers will definitely have to take better care of the basketball moving forward, the fact that they were able to pick up a win over a very good Cavaliers team on the road despite the turnovers is an impressive feat.
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Story originally appeared on Sixers Wire