PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers were able to walk away with a 115-105 win over the Indiana Pacers on Friday night thanks to a big performance from Joel Embiid. The big fella had 39 points on 12-for-23 shooting along with nine rebounds and three assists. It was a performance the Sixers desperately needed with Tyrese Maxey sidelined with an illness.

VJ Edgecombe added 22 points and five assists, Paul George added 23 points, six rebounds, and five assists, and Dominick Barlow had 10 points and eight rebounds. Quentin Grimes added 10 points, eight rebounds, and four assists.

Here are the three biggest takeaways following the win over the Pacers:

Embiid comes alive

The Sixers needed Embiid to have a big game. Yes, he has been bothered by a ton of injuries. It’s fair to wonder if he can do this on a consistent basis, but those questions and wonders are for a later date. For now, it’s time to appreciate what Embiid was able to do on the basketball court on Friday night. He looked like himself again. He was going to work in the post. He was attacking the basket. He was getting to the free-throw line. He was talking trash. Overall, he just looked like the Embiid of old. At least, for one night.

“He worked at it this week a lot,” said coach Nick Nurse after the win. “I think the practices helped. His own individual work away from practice certainly helped which is a great sign that he’s doing that and feeling good or better-ish to do some of that. I think that was it. I think, again, I keep saying, he’s best when he’s driving. I thought he drove it a lot to draw the fouls early. That puts them in a tough situation with how to play him. Probably the best thing about it all was, 39’s great, but it came in a lot of different schemes they threw at him. I thought he really read the different stuff pretty good most of the night.”

Edgecombe sets the tone

With Maxey sidelined, the Sixers needed the guards to step up and produce. That meant more opportunity for Edgecombe to step in and give the team some good production from the perimeter. He scored 14 of his 22 in the first quarter to set the tone for Philadelphia and make sure the offense got kickstarted. He shot 6-for-10 from the floor and 7-for-10 from the foul line which is a good sign for the Sixers. On top of all of that, he didn’t commit a single turnover. If he’s able to keep this type of performance going, then he and the team will be in great shape.

“He was great tonight,” Nurse said. “I just think he got himself mentally prepared to understand he needed to provide kind of a complete package tonight. He got aggressive early. Some of the stuff we tried to polish up got him some baskets early. Some execution out of some press breakers and things like that, that we’ve been working on. I think that got him going. I love the pull-up 3s in transition. That just shows how confident he’s playing. Those look awesome. When we get that fully integrated into his mindset, I think that’s a huge weapon. But he guarded good, he took care of the ball, he ran the team good, and he obviously got us off to a great start in that first half with 18 big ones.”

George as a point forward

The Sixers needed some ball-handlers on Friday with Maxey sidelined and George stepped up in a big way. Obviously, Edgecombe did a great job, but the Sixers put the ball in George’s hands and the 9-time All-Star handled business. He scored 23 points in 8-for-17 shooting, 4-for-7 from deep, and had six rebounds and five assists in 33 minutes on the night. Sure, he had four turnovers, but the Sixers generally got good shots all throughout the night when the ball was in his hands.

“I think, again, he’s showing that he is a guy who can score and create his own shot. Both from 2 and from 3,” Nurse explained. “Again, if he’s gonna sneak in a few drives–which he had late–again, it’s gonna make it all the tougher if he can score from all three levels, but I thought he did a good job of just, again, settling things down. He’s an experienced player, he’s got the ball in his hands, and it just comes down to make the right read. If there’s nothin there, you gotta go to work and score a big bucket. He looked pretty good tonight.”