Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns got a bit chippy during Saturday’s game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Minnesota Timberwolves.
Saturday was a big day for the Philadelphia 76ers, as star center Joel Embiid returned from a bone bruise in his left knee suffered on March 12. In his first game back, Embiid had to face off against the last-place Minnesota Timberwolves and a familiar rival in Karl-Anthony Towns.
In the second quarter of the game, Towns posterized Embiid with a vicious one-handed is sure to make the top plays of the week list. One quarter later, the 76ers big man did get some revenge on Towns in the form of a hard foul. Following video replay, officials assessed Embiid with a Flagrant 1 foul.
oh here we go. we know the history. KAT dunks all over Joel Embiid. pic.twitter.com/hRcPQYnMLD
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) April 4, 2021
Embiid and KAT getting chippy 👀 pic.twitter.com/QjRZSztQg6
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 4, 2021
Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns duel in Saturday’s 76ers-Timberwolves game
There is no love lost between these two stars. Back at the start of the 2019-20 season, Embiid and Town got into a heated fight that saw both teams and security try to pull the two apart.
Besides the two aforementioned instances, Embiid did troll Towns after a successful fadeaway jump shot that resulted in an and-one. Then, the Timberwolves trolled Embiid with a photo of the Towns dunk with the caption reading “we like our dunks processed.” Of course, that is dig at the 76ers’ “trust the process” motto.
Embiid and-1 on KAT with the celly 😂 pic.twitter.com/zwEk2QO4eP
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 4, 2021
WE LIKE OUR DUNKS PROCESSED 😼 pic.twitter.com/TVTrLRePoY
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 4, 2021
Embiid had missed the past 10 games due to the aforementioned knee injury, which looked to be a lot worse than determined based off the hyperextension. Entering Saturday’s game, Embiid had been averaging 29.9 points, 11.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists all the while shooting 52.5-percent from the field.
As for Towns, he recorded 24.1 points, 10.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists and a 48.9 completion percentage through 29 games prior to Saturday night.
One thing we can takeaway from this is that Embiid and Towns had one entertaining battle.