PHILADELPHIA -- The focus for the Philadelphia 76ers continues to be the Philadelphia 76ers. After a miraculous 114-106 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the home opener in which they had to rally from 29 down to win the game, LeBron James was asked about a comment President Donald Trump said about him on opening night in New York.
Trump took to Truth Social and criticized James in a post saying:
"I said right from the beginning that he's no good, a TOTAL DISGRACE. LeBron James should apologize to all of those Great American Warriors and Heroes who died for the American Flag, and all that our Country stands for!"
When asked about Trump's comments, James chuckled and simply stated: "It must be a slow news day at the office, you know? Slow news day in the office."
Now that the Trump stuff is out of the way, let's talk basketball. It was one helluva comeback from James and the Sixers as they dug deep from a 29-point deficit to stun the Cavaliers. In his home debut, James finished with 17 points on 5-for-14 shooting along with 10 rebounds and five assists. After committing five turnovers in the first half, he did not commit a single one in the second half and the Sixers thrived.
"We had to stop turning the ball over," James said. "I think we had 14 turnovers, something like that, in the first half, for, like, 19 points. We’ve got to stop turning the ball over and be a little bit more aggressive defensively, and just turn up the notch a little bit."
James was close. Philadelphia committed 15 first half turnovers for 22 Cleveland points and the Sixers had to make some adjustments after halftime in order to get back into the swing of things and allow themselves to rally and get the job done.
"It's just basically saying, ‘Well, let's see what we're made of at this point in the season.’ You know, I don't think we got a locker room full of lay-down guys," James added. "And there's a lot of game to be played. So we answered the call."
The Sixers have now rallied from double digits in both games to knock off both the Knicks and the Cavaliers. Both teams were East finalists, with the Knicks, of course, the defending NBA champs. James knows the Sixers can't rely on that, but this is a great test of their mettle and resilience.
"You don't want to rely on that," James laughed. "I think it's great to know we’ve got deep down, not going to have that quit mentality. You don't ever want to feel like that. You don't ever want to look around and be like, ‘OK, guys have gave up.’ So it's great to know that we’ve got that. But you don't want to put yourself in too many of those situations. And, so it was a good win for us."
The Sixers will play host to the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday to start a back-to-back.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Sixers star LeBron James responds to Donald Trump, talks win over Cavs