The Philadelphia 76ers gifted their fans with a big win on Christmas Day against the New York Knicks. With a 119-112 win, the Sixers won their eighth consecutive game. Joel Embiid and James Haren came through with big-time performances.

Embiid came away with 35 points on 12-22 shooting but it still wasn't a typically dominant game from the Sixers superstar. He got off to a poor start against Mitchell Robinson and relied heavily on drawing fouls to score early on. Although he eventually found his way, he knew he wasn't at his best as the game began.

“I started off the game soft,” Embiid admitted in his postgame press conference. “I was going up and throwing up layups and elbows and all that stuff and I wasn't physical so when in that third quarter I started feeling my legs get back into it, I wanted to make sure that I took over and kept us close and did my best job…”

Joel Embiid gave some big praise to James Harden (29 points, 13 assists) and Georges Niang (16 points, 12 in the fourth quarter), who took over in crunch time to get the Sixers the win over the Knicks. In the third quarter, the big fella led the way with 15 points on 6-9 shooting. He helped close out the win for Philly and let the crowd at Madison Square Garden know about it.

The Sixers are now 20-12 on the season and climbing closer to the top of the Eastern Conference standings.