The Philadelphia 76ers went up against a shorthanded Boston Celtics side that did not have the services of Jaylen Brown and Robert Williams. Without Boston’s starting center in the mix, you just knew that Sixers superstar Joel Embiid was going to have a big game — and that he did.
Embiid came out firing from the get-go and he refused to take his foot off the gas. This resulted in an eye-popping first-half outing for the 29-year-old, who continues to battle Denver Nuggets big man and reigning back-to-back MVP winner Nikola Jokic for this year’s MVP crown:
With 24 points at half against the Celtics, Joel Embiid now has 2,134 points this season.
That is the most in a season by a center since Shaquille O’Neal’s MVP season in 1999-2000 (2,344). pic.twitter.com/Xpk8d5OeGl
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 5, 2023
As indicated in the above tweet, Embiid closed out the first half with 24 points, en route to logging his 2,134th point this season. As it turns out, the last time a big man scored that many points in a single season was during the 1999-2000 campaign. The man behind that feat is none other than Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, who did it during his dominant spell with the Los Angeles Lakers. Incidentally, Shaq bagged the MVP title that year, too.
Does this bode well for Joel Embiid’s chances of winning this season’s Most Valuable Player award? He has been the frontrunner to do so for pretty much the entire year, but it is also clear that Jokic won’t give up his trophy without a fight. It’s going to be a very tight race to the end, and what cannot be denied is that there’s going to be a lot of controversy regardless of who ends up winning it.
The post Sixers star Joel Embiid matches epic Shaq feat carrying major omen for MVP chase appeared first on ClutchPoints.
