What started off as a battle of MVP candidates turned into a referendum on the Sixers' bench, transition defense and depth as the Sixers fell to the Denver Nuggets by a score of 114-110, despite the best efforts of one Joel Hans Embiid.
Embiid finished the night with 34 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocked shots, bouncing back from his struggles the previous night in emphatic fashion. Individually, Embiid outplayed Jokic in a showdown for the MVP narrative. Considering that Embiid just played 41 minutes in an overtime win in Orlando 24 hours earlier, the fact that he outplayed Jokic certainly gave a short-term boost to Embiid's MVP odds, or at least short-term narrative of Embiid's MVP case.
