Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons help Sixers brush aside Hawks for third straight win

There’s a sense that January came early this season.

The vibe around the 76ers is reminiscent of the excitement they provided in January last season. No one is expecting them to duplicate their winning 10 of 15 games, as they did then. But you can’t deny that the electricity provided by Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Co. is similar to that of 10 months ago.

On Wednesday, the Sixers showed a will to win as they extended their winning streak to three games with a 119-109 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. The sellout crowd of 20,549 witnessed the team’s first home win of the season.

The Sixers (4-4) have won four of five games after opening the season with losses to the Washington Wizards, Boston Celtics, and Toronto Raptors. The last time they were 500 was Nov. 11, 2013, when they were 4-4.

The Hawks (1-7) extended their league-worst losing skid to seven games.

“I don’t know if this is like January or it isn’t,” coach Brett Brown said. “What I do feel is we have a program and system in place that we are able to refine. We are not blowing up things.

“We experienced that growth last year in January, because we had a consistent team. … And we were about to walk it down.”

This season’s squad has several young players they expect to build around. The Sixers are also an extremely unselfish group. One gets a sense that for the most part, they don’t care who gets the glory. They just want to win.

That was evident in the Sixers’ locker room after the game.

Robert Covington was asked if this moment remind him of January. Justin Anderson, who didn’t play in the game, chimed in before Covington could answer.

“Put that [stuff] in the past,” Anderson said. “We are a new team. We aren’t worrying about what the Sixers did last year.

Source: philly