PHILADELPHIA — There’s a kind of basketball game that tells you nothing and a kind that tells you everything, and Thursday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena was the second kind.
For a half, the Sixers were a bad joke. Down 29 to the Cleveland Cavaliers in their own home opener, bricking threes — 11 misses on 15 attempts — coughing the ball up 14 times, letting Donovan Mitchell carve them up on the way to 32 points. The fancy new superteam Philadelphia spent all summer dreaming about looked like five guys who’d met in the parking lot. Half the arena was already rehearsing the “same old Sixers” speech in their heads. I’ll admit it — so was I.
Then they won. 114-106. The biggest comeback win of LeBron James’ career, and the man has been part of a lot of basketball.
How it happened
Here’s how it happened, because the how is the whole point. Joel Embiid, who’s been doubted and dissected and written off more times than any Philadelphia athlete this side of the Vet, reached down in the fourth quarter and scored seven straight points to pull the Sixers within 96-95. Seven straight, when the building needed it, from the big fella who was supposed to be too fragile to carry anything anymore. Then Tyrese Maxey — our Maxey, the one who plays every possession like somebody’s trying to take his lunch — lit the fuse on a 15-0 run that flipped the whole thing. Maxey finished with 32. Embiid had 24. Jaylen Brown chipped in 21. And LeBron, in his home debut in red and blue, did the unglamorous work: 17 points, 10 rebounds, the steadying hand that kept a young, panicking team from folding.
That’s a 2-0 start, by the way. They opened the season beating the Knicks on the road and now they’ve stolen one they had absolutely no right to win at home. Two different ways to win in two games — grind it out on the road, claw back from the dead at home.
Keep it in perspective
I want to be careful here, because I’m a fan but I’m a journalist first, and Camden raised me to call it straight. One comeback in October does not win anything. Cleveland is a real team and still led by 29, and you don’t get to feel good about digging a hole that deep just because you climbed out of it. The three-point shooting was ugly. The turnovers were worse. A better-coached opponent buries them by 40 and goes home. The Sixers have played exactly two games, and the graveyard of this franchise is full of promising Octobers.
But I also know what I saw, and what I saw matters for a region that pins an unreasonable amount of its mood to this team. South Jersey doesn’t love the Sixers because they’re flawless. We love them because, at their best, they refuse to go quietly — and a team that’s down 29 and keeps swinging is a team that’s going to be worth watching in May. The character question, the one that’s haunted every version of this roster, got a small early answer Thursday: these guys don’t quit on each other.
The character question, the one that’s haunted every version of this roster, got a small early answer Thursday: these guys don’t quit on each other.Samuel Banks
They host the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday and Detroit on Sunday, a quick back-to-back that’ll tell us more than any home-opener miracle. The schedule doesn’t slow down and neither should our skepticism. But for one night, down 29 and buried, the Sixers found out who they are. The rest of us got to watch it happen.
Red October’s over. The other guys are just getting started.
Based on reporting from CBS Philadelphia, ESPN, NBC Sports Philadelphia, and The Washington Post.