Joel Embiid, with 26 points, and James Harden, with 23 points, led Philadelphia to victory on Saturday at home against Brooklyn (121-101) for their first NBA play-off game.
The Sixers, already the best three-point team in the regular season, set a new playoff record with 21 award-winning shots for the first best-of-seven-innings meeting between the two Eastern Conference teams.
Match N.2 takes place on Monday, still in Philadelphia.
Harden, a former Nets player, hailed “a great victory” and warned that the N.2 game would be “the hardest in the series for us”.
The other matches of this first round oppose in the evening Boston to Atlanta and Cleveland to the New York Knicks for the Eastern Conference, while in the Western Conference, Golden State moves to the Sacramento Kings, who participate in the play-offs for the first time. since 2006.
