Joel Embiid Scores 70 In Record-Breaking Game

Philadelphia 76ers star center Joel Embiid scored a career-high 70 points in a win against the Spurs on Monday night. Embiid, who won last year’s NBA MVP award, is the ninth player in league history to score 70 or more, and the first in the 76ers franchise history.

Along with the 70 points on 24/41 FG shooting and 21/23 made free throws, Embiid collected 18 rebounds and five steals in his 37 minutes played. His stat line in Monday’s 133-123 win in San Antonio was the first 70-15-5 game in NBA history.

Embiid is currently ranked first in the NBA in scoring with 36.1 points per game, and sixth in rebounds with 11.6 per game. He is now the third center to hit the 70-point mark, behind a 73-point game from David Robinson, and Wilt Chamberlain to hit the mark six times highlighted most famously by his 100-point game in 1962.

“Like I said, unselfish teammates. They just got me the ball and I was hot. They made sure that they put me in the best position. And credit to the coaching staff too,” Embiid said after the game. “To be in the same conversation [as Chamberlain] is pretty cool.”

Embiid is currently ranked first in the NBA in scoring with 36.1 points per game and sixth in rebounds with 11.6 per game. Though only playing in 32 of the team’s 42 games this year, he is outmatching his statistics from last year that won him the MVP. If Embiid continues to miss games he will be taken out of consideration for the award this year, but the numbers he has been putting up cement himself,  as one of the league’s best players today.

Embiid won last year’s MVP award in a tight race to eventual Finals MVP Nikola Jokic, who won the regular season award the two seasons prior. Though many like to argue over whose play style they prefer or who they think is better, the competition between the two have been signifying a change in the NBA and its style of play.

For the past ten years since the rise of the three-pointer, centers and big men have only become less and less prominent and valuable with the style of open play. Many teams even ran lineups without a center or even a player taller than 6’9″, but that has changed with players like Embiid and Jokic in the league. With their unique styles of play and extreme popularity in their respective cities, the two have shifted what it means to be a big man in the NBA, not just grabbing rebounds for shooters, but being able to have them bring the ball up and run a play like a point guard.

The Sixers are currently 29-13 on the season and third in the Eastern Conference, behind only the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks. They have looked strong with new head coach Nick Nurse, but Philadelphia has struggled in the playoffs since Embiid has been their star player. Though making the playoffs the past six years, the team has yet to reach the conference finals, losing to the Celtics three times in that span.

Embiid’s 70-point game was the highest scoring mark of this season, and it is the eighth time in his career scoring more than 50 in a game. It was the fourth 70 point game of the 21st century, with Damian Lilliard and Donovan Mitchell scoring 71 each in 2023, Devin Booker with 70 in 2017, and 81 points by the late Kobe Bryant in 2006.