Joel Embiid scores 70 points, Karl-Anthony Towns gets 62

Joel Embiid scored 70 points in Philadelphia. Karl-Anthony Towns had 62 in Minnesota. The elite big men paired up to do something the NBA hadn’t seen on the same day in more than 45 years.

So mark it down: Jan. 22, 2024, was a day unlike almost any other in NBA history.

On the 18th anniversary of Kobe Bryant‘s 81-point game for the Lakers — the second-highest-scoring game in NBA history — Embiid and Towns put on a pair of dazzling, historic scoring shows of their own with a pair of franchise-record efforts.

“From the time I started playing, Kobe was my guy,” Embiid said. “He’s the reason why I started playing basketball. It’s funny, on the same night he got 81, and that was my favorite player.”

Embiid’s 70 points set the 76ers’ record in Philadelphia’s 133-123 win over San Antonio, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s mark of 68 (when he scored 100 for Philadelphia, it was the franchise record for the team now known as Golden State).

Towns’ 62 points eclipsed his previous Timberwolves record by two, but it wasn’t enough in a 128-125 loss to Charlotte. He had 44 points at halftime.

Towns had a game unlike any other in NBA history. He became the first player with 10 two-pointers, 10 three-pointers and 10 free throws in a game. He was 11-for-20, 10-for-15 and 10-for-14, respectively.

“What is it, 15 of us in here?’’ said Anthony Edwards, who said he stopped looking for his shot in hopes that Towns would score even more. “Fourteen of us wanted to see him get 80 . . . Congratulations to Big KAT, a one-of-a-kind performance.”

Embiid was a mere 1-for-2 on three-pointers Monday. “I was actually surprised he didn’t beat me,” he said of Towns. “I heard he had like 45 at halftime . . . He obviously did it in a different way. I had one three and he had 10 of them. That’s amazing.”

Add it all up, and Monday was the fourth day in NBA history in which two players scored at least 60 points. The others were April 9, 1978 (David Thompson had 73 for Denver, George Gervin had 63 for San Antonio); Jan. 17, 1962 (Jerry West scored 63 for the Lakers and Chamberlain scored 62 for Philadelphia), and Dec. 8, 1961 (Chamberlain had 78 for Philadelphia and Elgin Baylor had 63 for the Lakers in a triple-overtime game against one another).

Embiid was 24-for-41 from the field and made 21 of 23 free throws. He scored 24 points in the first quarter and set a career high with 18 rebounds.

“He’s a fantastic player,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “Obviously in the running for MVP. That’s for sure. But everybody already knew that.”

Embiid has scored at least 30 points in 21 straight games.

“The only thing I told my teammates was, ‘Please don’t force it,’ ” he said. “Let’s just play basketball. We were just trying to play the right way.”

Victor Wembanyama had 33 points and seven rebounds in 29 minutes for the Spurs.

Philadelphia coach Nick Nurse marveled at Embiid’s performance. “Obviously, he can score in so many ways. Just his sheer size gets him a lot of stuff around the basket, gets him a lot of free throws,” Nurse said. “The shooting touch is the skill part. The way he moves, the skill he has, the size he is, and he gets motivated like that, anything can happen, I guess.”