ATLANTA — The 76ers will tell you it was all about the basics.
They used the methods Doc Rivers preached since training camp against the Atlanta Hawks in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. And it led to a 127-111 victory Friday night. The Sixers have a 2-1 advantage in the best-of-seven series. Game 4 will be 7:30 p.m. Monday in Atlanta.
Joel Embiid played in a lot of pain.
The Sixers center played in his third consecutive game with a small meniscus tear in his right knee. He was a game-time decision. He tweaked his knee a few times in the second half. However, the league MVP runner-up gutted it out as the Hawks tried to make a late run.
Embiid had his lowest-scoring game of the conference semifinals, finishing with 27 points after averaging 39.5 points in the first two games. But a lot of his reduced scoring had to do with his passing to teammates when the Hawks double- and triple-teamed him.
In addition to Embiid’s playing through pain, the Sixers lost Danny Green 3 minutes, 45 seconds into the game with a right calf strain. But they still managed to get the win thanks to balanced scoring, solid shooting, and sticking to the basics.
Ben Simmons had 18 points, seven assists and four rebounds. Tobias Harris, who stayed in the game after hitting his head early in the fourth quarter, had 22 points and eight rebounds. Seth Curry finished with 12 points, while reserve Furkan Korkmaz had 14 points.
Trae Young finished with 28 points for Atlanta.
After the Hawks lost Game 2, the expectation was they would come out with a lot of energy in front of their home crowd. The Hawks had won 13 straight and 19 of their last 21 games, including the postseason, at State Farm Arena.
Rivers was asked before the game if the key to the winning would be weathering Atlanta’s storm.
“Nobody ever knows like, what if they come out and we play great and we weather the storm or what if we come out great and they weather the storm, you know?” he said. “The bottom line is winning the game.”
With that, Rivers said the Sixers keys are what they’ve been all year: Get back in transition and take away shots.
The coach believes the playoffs are about getting more to the basics and more about that they’ve been doing all season.
“And doing it better than the other team,” Rivers said. “So that’s what we are going to be focused on. We are going to be focused on playing the best version of the way we play as powerfully as we can do it.”
Some will argue the Sixers did a solid job of weathering the Hawks’ storm at the start. But in reality, they took advantage of the Hawks’ first-quarter poor shooting.
Atlanta made just 38.1% of its shots in the quarter.
Bogdan Bogdanovic made two of his first three baskets to give the Hawks a 4-0 lead. They went on to miss their next four shots and the Sixers went ahead, 6-4.
Bodganovic responded with a corner 3-pointer to give the Hawks a one-point lead. But the Sixers went up 8-7 after Simmons’ dunk. The lead seesawed for a while before the Sixers went on a 7-0 run to take a 15-11 lead with 3:38 left in the opening quarter.
They went on to take an eight-point lead into the second quarter. The Sixers shot 57.9% from the field while dealing with the absence of their glue guy.
The Sixers took a 61-56 lead into the half on a night when Embiid had only three first-half shot attempts, making two of them. He had 10 points while making 5 of 6 foul shots as the Hawks double- and triple-teamed him.
He had only one turnover in the half and also did a solid job of reading the double- and triple-teams.
The Sixers took a 20-point cushion into the fourth quarter.
