After leading by 20 points, Nets fall to 76ers in OT

PHILADELPHIA — After falling behind by 16 points at the outset, it seemed the Nets might be suffering a hangover to news that Kyrie Irving is out for the season to undergo shoulder surgery. Remarkably, they surged to a 20-point lead in the second period, then gave it all back to trail by five in the final period before leading by six with barely two minutes to go in regulation.

But the 76ers tied it on a pair of Joel Embiid foul shots with 16.2 seconds left, and then Embiid blocked a layup attempt by Wilson Chandler at the buzzer to send the game to overtime Thursday night at Wells Fargo Center. Embiid’s defensive presence sparked a 9-0 finishing kick by the 76ers, who allowed just one Nets point in overtime, to pull out a 112-104 victory that improved their home record to 26-2.

The Nets (25-29) got 25 points from Caris LeVert, 22 and eight assists from Spencer Dinwiddie and 14 points and 15 rebounds from DeAndre Jordan, but they shot only 35.3 percent from the field, including an 0-for-7 effort in OT. Embiid had a monster game for the 76ers (35-21) with 39 points and 16 rebounds, hitting 18 of19 free-throw attempts.Tobias Harris added 22 points and 12 rebounds.

Nets coach Kenny Atkinson was upset by the fact the 76ers got to the foul line 35 times and made 32. “Our margin of error is just too small to do that,” Atkinson said. “We gifted them too many points.”

As for the impact Embiid made and how the 76ers' defense did a good job of getting the ball out of the hands of Dinwiddie and LeVert at the end, Atkinson said, “Yeah, he killed us. They made it really tough on Caris and Spencer, and they left Embiid at the rim.”

With the game tied at 103 in regulation, the Nets had the last shot. Dinwiddie then drove and kicked to Chandler on the left baseline. Instead of shooting, he drove and tried a reverse layup that Embiid blocked.

“It was my fault,” Dinwiddie said. “[Josh] Richardson tried to play close to me on defense like he did the whole night, I went by him and Embiid stepped over. We had Wilson in the short corner, and we trust Wilson to shoot unequivocally.”

It was a tough way to lose after putting together a 46-10 first-half run to go from 16 down to 20 ahead. “We played our best basketball for stretches, and in other stretches, we had mental lapses,” LeVert said. “It’s a good game to learn from.”

By Greg Logan

Gregory.Logan@newsday.comGregLogan1

Greg Logan has worked for Newsday since 1982 covering a wide array of sports and events, currently including the Brooklyn Nets beat.