Seth Curry and his fellow Philadelphia 76ers teammates knew that they needed to step up Wednesday evening with star center Joel Embiid sidelined to a knee injury.
Philadelphia was coming off a Game 4 loss to the Washington Wizards in the first round of their NBA Playoff series. It simply needed to close this series out in order to get Embiid and other players some rest.
Boy, was the lesser-known Curry more than prepared to step up. He scored the Sixers’ first 12 points in a defining third quarter that saw Philadelphia outscore Washington by seven.
All said, Seth Curry scored a playoff career-high 30 points in 31 minutes of action. He connected on 10-of-17 shots and was plus-11 when on the court.
Even with Embiid sidelined in this one, no one really expected Curry to lead Philadelphia in scoring and a date with either the Atlanta Hawks or New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Most figured Ben Simmons or Tobias Harris would do the heavy lifting.
That obviously wasn’t the case, and it had people talking.