PHILADELPHIA — Joel Embiid and Nick Nurse's first time joining forces led the Philadelphia 76ers to a victory. The Sixers ended their preseason with a win over the Atlanta Hawks despite a less-than-stellar scoring night from the reigning MVP.

Embiid had 21 points on 3-12 shooting from the field in 33 minutes in his only preseason game. The Sixers' big man found some energy down the stretch but clearly worked off a lot of rust. He didn’t loaf around, though. Embiid hustled to make some stops on defense, blocked a pair of shots and earned 15 free throws (of which he made 14).

Nurse was eager to get Embiid some minutes in the preseason so that he could get a feel for his new teammates and up-tempo playing style. He knew that his big man would need to get his legs under him and praised him for how he stayed with it.

“It was a real rhythm and conditioning night for him,” Nurse said. “I think it looked like his legs were not quite there a bit, here and there…Coming out in the second half, I thought he made a pretty concerted effort to be really hard to guard. 

“And I thought he kept really good energy at the defensive end. You guys probably noticed we had him out high and switching some and out, even trapping some,” Nurse continued. “Just thought he looked really active at that end considering the kind of the game and how much he's played in a game and all that kind of stuff. So, I thought his effort in the second half was really good.”

Embiid and Tyrese Maxey went to work together often. Maxey dropped 12 assists, which would have been two more than his career-high if it were a regular-season game. The Sixers will rely on both stars heavily for as long as James Harden is away from the team. Talented as they may be, Nurse knows they will have to find their groove together.

“Kind of got to a little bit more of it in the second half. Just tried to organize it a little bit more,” Nurse said. “It was okay. I think there's a lot of potential there. There's a lot of growth to be had yet. I mean, listen, it's a fast guy that can race it to the rim and shoot the three and a big guy that can roll and also pop if he needs to. So, it should be a good combination. It's just gonna need some time.”

Nurse also went to the Embiid-Paul Reed pairing for the first time, playing them with Maxey, Jaden Springer and Kelly Oubre Jr. He wasn’t super impressed by what he saw, though he complimented Reed for how well he finished at the rim and moved without the ball to get open. Getting at least this one chance to work out some things should be quite helpful heading into the season.

The Sixers will have some practices in the lead-up to the regular season before facing the new-look Milwaukee Bucks.