Key details on last night's game:
- James Harden (Achilles) and Joel Embiid (calf) returned to the lineup.
- Harden said he's been dealing with Achilles soreness for months.
- Sixers shrug off slow start, hold Mavs to 17 fourth-quarter points to steal win despite C- effort.
- With the win, Basketball-Reference now gives the Sixers just a 6.4% chance of falling to the 4 seed, down from 20.1% on Tuesday.
For most of last night's win, the Sixers looked like a team on the first night back home after a tough road trip, and a team trying to re-integrate the two core pieces that their entire offensive scheme is built around.
With some hot shooting from the Sixers, with Dallas shooting just 4-16 in the final 10 minutes of play, and a "good enough" effort from Joel Embiid the Sixers were able to overcome their slow start and snap their three game losing streak with a 116-108 win over the Mavs.
It wasn't pretty, it wasn't necessarily confidence inspiring (mostly because of the injury updates that we'll get to in a bit), but it was key: the chance that the Sixers could fall to the 4th seed has diminished greatly, which will hopefully give the Sixers all the more reason to be cautious with the health of Embiid and Harden down the stretch.
Turning point
