ATLANTA — Who needs style points?
The 76ers were able to get stops down the stretch while the offense was horrid. Added to that, their All-Star point guard, Ben Simmons, was either uninvolved or on the bench.
Yet that didn’t matter to the Sixers, who were in a win-or-go fishing elimination game. A win is a win.
Tobias Harris sank a pair of foul shots with 2.1 seconds left to secure a 104-99 over the Atlanta Hawks in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The victory knotted the best-of-seven series at 3-3. The winner-take-all series finale will be Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Center.
The Sixers survived a 34-point, 12-assist effort from Atlanta’s Trae Young. They also made only 22.2 % of their shots in the fourth quarter. Simmons didn’t attempt a shot in the quarter. He went 2 for 4 from the foul line as the Hawks went to Hack-a-Ben.
He finished with six points, nine rebounds, and five assists. He made 2 of 6 field goals and committed five fouls.
Harris and Seth Curry led the Sixers with 24 points apiece. Joel Embiid added 22 points and 13 rebounds. Reserve point guard Tyrese Maxey added 16 points.
Late in the game, Embiid and Hawks forward John Collins had to be separated.
Embiid was called for an offensive foul while appearing to score a basket on Collins in the paint with 4 minutes, 3 seconds remaining.
After both players fell to the floor, Collins shoved Embiid off him and began yapping at the center. The players got up and Embiid stepped toward the Hawks power forward. Embiid, while extending his arm, pushed Collins off the court and to the side of the basketball stanchion. Both players received double-technicals.
In a bizzare game, the arena lights went out with 1:59 to play shortly after Young’s 3-pointer closed the gap to 94-93. But after the lights came back on, Embiid scored to put the Sixers up three. On the next possession, he made one of two foul shots with 1:15 left to make it 97-93. Maxey made it 98-93 with 27.2 seconds left.
The Sixers had all Thursday and most of Friday to think about erasing mistakes that led to losses in the previous two games.
They lost Game 4 after holding an 18-point lead. The Sixers followed that up by blowing a 26-point lead while losing Game 5.
“They’re good,” coach Doc Rivers said pregame. “They’re ready. I think our guys are ready, but you never know if they’re all ready, how many are ready. Listen, if I could tell you all that, I would start having trading cards and picking cards and playing tricks. But my feeling, the guys are ready to play.”
Perhaps knowing the magnitude of the game, Rivers seemed a little tight talking to the media before the game.
The Sixers didn’t tweak their starting lineup.
Furkan Korkmaz remained at small forward instead of Matisse Thybulle. This marked Korkmaz’s third consecutive start in place of the injured Danny Green, who was sidelined with a right calf strain. The move was made to bring another defender on the floor.
The Hawks had been attacking Korkmaz and Curry when the Sixers were on defense. As a second-team all-defensive player, Thybulle would have been major upgrade in an attempt to avoid mismatches.
But the sharpshooting Korkmaz provides much-needed floor spacing.
While Rivers appeared tight, the Sixers looked out of sorts at the start of the game.
Harris picked up two fouls in the first four minutes. The Sixers missed nine of their first 13 shot attempts and trailed 16-8 with 7:11 left in the quarter.
Turnovers then led to five points by Kevin Huerter to put the Hawks up 20-8. Huerter’s final two points came at the foul line after being fouled by Simmons.
So the Sixers had two starters, Harris and Simmons, on the bench with two fouls at the 6:41 mark of the first quarter. The Hawks went on to take a 29-22 lead into the second quarter.
Curry was the Sixers’ leading scorer with eight points on 3-for-5 shooting. Embiid had four points on 2-for-7 shooting to go with four rebounds and four turnovers. Young paced the Hawks with 11 points.
The Sixers opened the second quarter with a lineup of Harris, Maxey, Shake Milton, George Hill and Dwight Howard. The lineup began the quarter with a 7-0 run to knot the score at 29.
They missed their next four shots as the Hawks built a 35-29 lead.
All 12 of Harris’ first-half points came in the second quarter as the Sixers went into the locker room down, 51-47. The Sixers were down only four points even though Embiid and Simmons had subpar halves.
Embiid had eight points and six rebounds but missed seven of his 11 shots. He also committed another turnover in the second quarter to give him five of the Sixers’ seven first-half turnovers.
Simmons had almost as many fouls (three) as points (four) while being a minus-15 in the first half.
But the Sixers opened the second half on a 12-0 run. Curry started things off with a 3-pointer. Then Embiid buried one, followed by two more by Curry to make it 59-51 with 9:45 left in the quarter.
The Sixers took an 80-76 lead into the third quarter.
The Hawks went to Hack-a-Ben with 6:39 remaining. Simmons made the first one give the Sixers an 87-81 lead before missing the second.
The Hawks went back to it on the next possession. Again, Simmons made the first before missing the second to make it 88-81 with 6:06 to play. Rivers subbed the point guard out for Maxey two seconds later.
