PHILADELPHIA _ Joel Embiid looked pretty healthy for a guy whose status was in question. The 76ers center put on a show, and his teammates followed his lead.
The rookie center finished with a career-high 26 points in 20 minutes to lead the Sixers to a 120-105 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
The Sixers (3-10) have won two of their last three games after going 1-9. They opened the season with seven consecutive losses. They also extended their winning streak over the Suns (4-10) to three games.
Embiid was the major reason. He also had seven rebounds, two blocks, two assists, and three turnovers.
His 17 points in the first quarter were the most in a quarter by a Sixers rookie since Jahlil Okafor had 18 against the Dallas Mavericks on Feb. 21, 2016.
Embiid scored on his first three shots _ a layup followed by 24-foot and 26-foot three-pointers to give the Sixers an 8-5 lead with 10 minutes, 9 seconds left in the quarter. Then after a layup by Ersan Ilyasova, Embiid scored on an alley-oop dunk from Sergio Rodriguez. That gave him 10 of the Sixers' first 12 points.
The 7-foot-2, 276-pounder went on to add a pair of foul shots and a three-pointer on his way to shooting 6 of 8 in the quarter _ including going 3 for 4 on three-pointers.
All this came on a day on which Embiid was listed as questionable to play with a sprained left ankle.
Embiid suffered the injury in the first quarter of Thursday's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Target Center. He went to the bench momentarily in that game before returning to play.
He participated in Saturday's shootaround and put in extra work afterward. However, Embiid wasn't cleared to play until 20 minutes before the game.
The Sixers tied the franchise record with 17 three-pointers. They also shot 52.3 percent from the field on a night when Nik Stauskas (21 points), Hollis Thompson (14), Ilyasova (11), Gerald Henderson (11), and Dario Saric (10) were their other double-figure scorers.
Robert Covington had another off night, though. He scored three points on 1-for-5 shooting before leaving the game with a left side bruise in the third quarter. The small forward shot 4 for 31 over his last four games.
"I thought about it a lot and I'm not going do it," coach Brett Brown said of benching Covington. "I'm going to back the fact that shooters shoot and his time is not far away.
"And that he is playing good defense, and he does know what we are doing. I look at him sort of sadly as a veteran, because he's been here that little that he's veteran."
Covington finished with two blocks, two steals, five rebounds, and three turnovers. He was booed on occasion.
Suns point guard Eric Bledsoe finished with a game-high 27 points.
As expected, Nerlens Noel flew back to Philadelphia on Friday to resume working out under the Sixers' supervision.
The reserve center had surgery to repair inflamed tissue above his left knee on Oct. 24. He has been rehabilitating under the supervision of Kevin Wilk, the associate clinical director at Champion Sports Medicine in Birmingham, Ala.
He met with Brown in the coach's office Saturday to talk about the plan for him.
"I'm not able right now to lay out the perfect road map to everybody," Brown said. "But it was a great conversation. It was good to see him as we always do with our players and me with Nerlens. I've been with him a long time. It's very clear and candid what his role and what's going to happen. How are we going to try to make it work."
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