Philadelphia 76ers: Marco Belinelli shines in amazing comeback debut

After going down by 23 points at halftime, the Philadelphia 76ers pulled off a miraculous comeback in route to their fifth straight home win.

Wow, what an unlikely victory for the Philadelphia 76ers!

After news broke that Joel Embiid would not be able to go in the Sixers final home game before the All-Star break due to a tweaked ankle, the team put together an incredibly uninspired performance in the first half of the game, marred with inefficient shooting, and sloppy play, and went into halftime down by 23 points.

But unlike the 76ers of yore, this iteration of Brett Brown‘s squad finally took the bull by the horns and rebounded in the second half.

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Lead by Dario Saric, who scored almost all of his team-high19 points in the third quarter, the team put on a show for their home crowd, outscoring the Miami Heat by 15 points in the third, before tying things up midway through the fourth quarter.

Though all of the usual suspects, like T.J. McConnell, J.J. Redick, and Ben Simmons all stepped up and put in work at the Wells Fargo Center, giving Simmons his sixth triple-double of the season, the real stars of the game were seldom used center Richaun Holmes, and recent Sixers acquisition Marco Belinelli.

In only Holmes second appearance in the last eight games, the former second-round pick scored 11 points on seven shots while filling in for Embiid, and he did so against one of the league’s best defensive centers, Hassan Whiteside. Though Whiteside did get his, finishing the game with a 16 point, 10 rebound double-double, Holmes kept Embiid’s arch-rival in check and kept the paint clean in the second half of the game.

While Holmes was impressive, the real star of the game had to be Belinelli.

Donning the red, white and blue for his first time, the guard-forward went off for 17 points on twelve shots, including 3-5 from three-point range, and he wasn’t just effective off of the catch-and-shoot. The 31-year-old vet flew all around the court, whether it be chasing down rebounds or getting involved in the fast break, and selflessly helping the team in whatever way he could, and it was contagious. The 76ers locked it down in the waning minutes of the fourth and ultimately came away with the victors by a score of 104-102.

After spending seasons trapped on losing teams, Belinelli vehemently wanted to become a 76ers, as he seriously “Trusts the Process” and that was on full display in South Philly on Wednesday night.

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With the 76ers having finally found a legitimate scoring threat off the bench to pair with McConnell, Coach Brown’s squad looks primed to take the next step in their progression as a team. By overtaking their 23 point deficit at halftime, and getting the W without their best player against another playoff caliber team, the Sixers have proven that they are a legitimately talented team who’s just getting started, and could become a force for years to come in the Eastern Conference.