PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia 76ers looked dead in the water in the home opener on Thursday as the Cleveland Cavaliers invaded the Xfinity Mobile Arena and were punking the Sixers. The Cavs built a lead as large as 29 to quiet what was a raucous crowd to see LeBron James and Co.
Instead of giving up, the Sixers put on a furious rally to beat the Cavaliers 114-106 and improve to 2-0 on the season. Two tests and they've passed with flying colors to open the new season.
Tyrese Maxey had 32 points and six assists, Joel Embiid had 24 points and seven rebounds, and LeBron James added 17 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists. Jaylen Brown chipped in with 21 points, eight rebounds, and four assists and VJ Edgecombe had 11, seven rebounds, and five assists.
Here are the three biggest takeaways following the miraculous win:
Sixers respond to adversity
A team never wants to rely on this type of adversity, but the Sixers were phenomenal in this one. It doesn't get much tougher than being down 29, committing 14 first half turnovers, giving up eight offensive rebounds, and having trouble in terms of finding a rhythm. The Sixers completely flipped the script in the third when they outscored the Cavaliers 37-21. They committed only two turnovers in the second half. They shot 50% from the floor and held Cleveland to 36.8%. It was an overall impressive second half after a miserable start to this one.
"First of all, we started playing a lot harder for starters," coach Nick Nurse explained. "We just really were out of total sync to start the game and turnovers and just a lot of one pass, freeze. After every timeout, I was like, we’ve got to execute. We’ve got to execute. We just couldn't get ourselves going for some reason, just mentally. But obviously come out, start picking up second half. Got the quick timeout, and then we kind of switched a few things defensively that took out a lot of the stuff that was really hurting us, that was really hard to guard. So we got them in a little better position."
Maxey leads a defensive charge
Cavs star James Harden is one of the more brilliant offensive minds in the history of the game. He is so smart in terms of running offense and making sure guys are in a position to succeed. His numbers on Thursday won't stand out, but he was making sure Cleveland was able to run offense and get into the best position to find a rhythm. Maxey noticed it and he was picking up Harden full court and bothered him. That slowed things down for The Beard and the Cavaliers and threw a lot of their offensive sets out of whack. It was a smart move by Maxey and allowed him to really set the tone for Philadelphia's comeback efforts.
"He was just orchestrating, man," Maxey said of Harden. "He was orchestrating the offense, and you know, I just felt like it was—I needed it. We needed it. We needed that spark, and we did a good job of it, and it kind of went our way."
Brown takeover in the fourth
Moments like Thursday are why the Sixers swung that huge Brown deal back in July. The Sixers needed somebody to really step up and take some big shots and that somebody was Brown. He scored 10 of his 21 in the fourth and he shot 5-for-7 all while also making big plays on the defensive end. As Philadelphia moves forward, it will need this type of effort from him. There were a few moments when James and Embiid were on the bench and the Sixers fed Brown in an effort to really seal a phenomenal comeback win.
"He brings just a different dynamic for our team, offensively and defensively," Maxey said of Brown. "It's a wrinkle that we could throw in there at any given moment. He can guard bigs, he can guard guards. Like tonight, I told him, ‘Listen, I'm gonna guard James in the third and fourth quarter. Early on, I need you to score the ball.’ He was aggressive and he did that."
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: 3 biggest takeaways for Sixers following miraculous win over Cavaliers