NEW YORK–The Philadelphia 76ers and the Brooklyn Nets played one physical and chaotic Game 3 on Thursday night. In a game where the Sixers walked away with a 102-97 win, there were certainly a ton of bumps and bruises along the way.
Joel Embiid and Nic Claxton got into a scuffle at the beginning of the game when Claxton threw down a lob while being fouled by Embiid. What followed was Claxton stepping over Embiid and then the MVP candidate kicking Claxton in the midsection.
The result was Embiid getting hit with a flagrant-1 and Claxton getting hit with a technical foul. Considering what has been going on around the league, one could have assumed that Embiid was going to be thrown out of the game.
“I never looked up,” said coach Doc Rivers. “I swear to God, I didn’t want to look up. To this point, I’ve yet to see it. The game was not going well, and so I’m not superstitious, but I swear, I never looked up and I hadn’t seen it yet because I thought the way this thing is going, anything can happen.”
Claxton and the Nets, on the other hand, believed that Embiid should have been kicked out at that moment.
“He’s the MVP,” Claxton told reporters. “I thought he should have been kicked out, but like I said, it’s not my job to referee. Maybe I should have sold it more instead of just clapping on the ground. Like I was really, really hurt, but just gotta move on.”
Nets coach Jacque Vaughn backed his player as he had never before seen a player kick another player, but wasn’t ejected.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in my career before,” Vaughn told reporters. “For a guy to intentionally kick someone in an area that none of us want to be kicked at or towards and for him to continue to play. I’ve never seen that before. In a game and a guy continues to be able to play. Intentional.”
A play such as that can be debated for hours, but at the end of the day, Embiid and the Sixers walked away with the win and they are one win away from sweeping the Nets and advancing to Round 2.
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