Joel Embiid Discusses Scuffle With Montrezl Harrell

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid is no stranger to on-court controversy. While the four-time All-Star has certainly toned down his antics over the last few

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid is no stranger to on-court controversy. While the four-time All-Star has certainly toned down his antics over the last few years, Embiid tends to find himself getting into altercations every now and then.

When the Sixers took on the Washington Wizards on Sunday night on the road, Embiid missed his team's morning shootaround as he was feeling under the weather. Despite not being one-hundred percent on Sunday morning, the Sixers center still intended to play against the Wizards.

Fortunately for the Sixers, Embiid was indeed good to go. Not only was he present and active for Philly's matchup -- but Embiid came out firing in the first half of Philly's Sunday night matchup in Washington.

Through the first nine minutes of action, Embiid went 5-7 from the field and 2-3 from the free-throw line to collect 13 points. When the first half ended, Philly's big man had 18 points in 17 minutes. Whatever the Wizards tried to do to stop Embiid didn't work. Perhaps, Washington's big man Montrezl Harrell attempted to get in Embiid's head later in the game.

What Went Down?

With three minutes left to go in the third quarter, Embiid and Harrell got tangled up. After Embiid backed Harrell down, forcing him to lose his footing, Harrell quickly got up and intentionally fouled Embiid in an attempt to prevent the Sixers from scoring an easy basket.

As the two big men got tangled up, they eventually got into a bit of shoving match while exchanging words. Meanwhile, players on the court intervened to separate the two to avoid any further conflict.

Things got heated between Joel Embiid and Montrezl Harrell after this play 😳 pic.twitter.com/pbJTzRwrg0

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 27, 2021

At that point, it was clear that technical fouls were on the way. Sure enough, after reviewing the play, Sunday's referees issued double techs on Embiid and Harrell. 

"He flopped, and he got me pretty hard," said Joel Embiid after the game. "I don't think he made a play on the ball. He got me pretty hard, and we got tangled. That was really it. He was holding me and tried to hold me."

Embiid Gets the Last Laugh

Roughly a minute after they exchanged words, Harrell got heated with Embiid once more. On Washington's next offensive possession, Harrell threw down a dunk and made it apparent that Embiid lit that fire under him.

However, Embiid got the last laugh on the next possession. While he didn't throw down a dunk on Harrell, Embiid out-rebounded the Wizards on a missed three-point attempt by Georges Niang. When Embiid got the ball again, he put up a layup and drew a foul from Harrell, which caused the Wizards big man to lose his cool again.

At that point, Harrell's night ended early as he picked up his second technical foul in two minutes, leading to his ejection.

"On that second tech, I just happened to be smarter," Embiid explained. "I knew in that situation, I'm too valuable to my team to put myself in that situation and get a second technical foul, so he just happened to react after giving up an And-1, and that got him out of there. I was just smiling. I was smiling because he told me that I didn't do anything all game which is surprising because, at that point, I think I had like 30 in 20 minutes. Like I said, I'm just glad we got the win."

Not only did Embiid get the last laugh on Harrell on Sunday night, but he wrapped up the night with a game-high of 36 points in 30 minutes. He also made it a double-double outing as he collected 13 rebounds as well. As Embiid led the charge, the Sixers came out on top with a 117-96 win in D.C.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.