Embiid happy to get win, says 76ers 'should be like 5-3'

The Philadelphia 76ers snapped one of the most incredible streaks in sports Friday night, winning a pre-December basketball game for the first time since 2013 - a run of 44 straight October/November losses.

Rookie big man Joel Embiid, who's already the team's best player by far, was relieved to finally experience his first NBA victory, after a few near-misses during the Sixers' season-opening seven-game losing streak.

"It feels great to finally close a game out," Embiid told reporters, according to Tom Moore of Calkins Media. "We should be like 5-3."

Far-fetched though that may sound, it's not an outlandish notion. The Sixers led for the majority of their season opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder, before collapsing late. They blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead to the Orlando Magic. They led the Cleveland Cavaliers by five with under four minutes to play, but went scoreless over the final 2:37 and lost by a single point. Most recently, they let a six-point lead slip in the final 90 seconds of regulation before losing in overtime to the Indiana Pacers, the same team they beat (again in overtime, again after blowing a late lead) on Friday night.

Embiid, who scored a team-high 25 points, made some big plays down the stretch, including hitting two game-sealing free throws after grabbing a monster offensive rebound. In describing his ongoing evolution after the game, he chose his words extremely carefully.

"Making plays in the clutch is a learning process for me," he said, according to CSN's Jessica Camerato. "And you've got to trust it."