After Thursday’s impressive win at Chicago, the Sixers visit an improved Wizards team

The 76ers will play their first of nine back-to-backs in the second half when they visit the Washington Wizards on Friday.

The Sixers are 25-12, a season-best 13 games over .500, while Washington is just 14-21.

Forget the records. It won’t be easy for the Sixers, especially since Washington was idle Thursday, while the Sixers scored a 127-105 victory in Chicago, among their most impressive wins of the season.

The win came without All-Stars Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, sidelined due to contact tracing for the coronavirus. If Embiid continues to test negative, he would be able to play Friday, while Simmons is out for the game.

“I am very proud of this team, how we came on tonight, but we got to keep it going,” center Dwight Howard said.

Howard came off the bench to score 18 points and grab 12 rebounds and blocked two shots. He was among seven double-figure scorers. Another was Tony Bradley, who got the start at center. Bradley hit all seven of his shots and totaled 14 points, five rebounds and three blocks.

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At this point, all Howard is thinking about is a sweep.

“It’s all about what we got to do in Washington and just for this team with the success we had, we’ve got to continue to get better,” Howard said.

Washington is coming off Wednesday’s 127-112 loss at Memphis, but the Wizards are 8-4 in their last 12 games. They are within two games of the 10th and final position for a play-in series among the 7-10 seeds in the Eastern Conference.

In addition, the Wizards played the Sixers tough in two early-season losses. The Sixers opened the season with a 113-107 home win over the Wizards on Dec. 23, and on Jan. 6, the Sixers earned a wild 141-136 home win.

In the latter game, the Sixers survived a 60-point effort by Bradley Beal, although he scored just three in the final quarter, shooting 1-for-6. That was a career high in points for Beal and tied the franchise single-game record originally set by Gilbert Arenas.

“Both games we had leads and were right there with five minutes to go,” coach Scott Brooks said in a Zoom interview Wednesday when discussing the two losses to the Sixers. “We lost a bunch of those games and then the health and safety protocol hit and that took a lot out of us, not only the physical but the mental.”

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The Wizards had six consecutive games postponed because of health and safety protocols from Jan. 13-22. They went 3-9 in their first 12 games back before going on their current 8-4 run.

“We’re all healthy. We’re all fine. We’re excited,” said Brooks, who began his NBA playing career with the Sixers. “We played a lot of games in February, and that has prepared us for a lot more games coming up.”

The Wizards were 9-7 in February. And even though they are 8-4 in the last 12, they have also dropped three of their last four.

Stopping Beal will be the most difficult task for the Sixers. He leads the NBA in scoring (32.5 ppg.) and is the only player with a higher average than Embiid (30.2). This season, Beal earned his third All-Star berth. Now in his ninth season with Washington, the 27-year-old Beal has averaged 23.6 points in 24 games against the Sixers.

If the Sixers need any more motivation, they can look to end a long drought at Washington’s Capital One Arena. The Wizards have a 10-game winning streak against the Sixers in Washington. (The Wizards did lose a “home” game to the Sixers on Aug. 5 of last year, but that was in the NBA bubble in Kissimmee, Fla.)