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In the first half of their home opener on Thursday night, the Sixers were being serenaded by boos. And they deserved it, as LeBron James later admitted.
After Tyrese Maxey tied the game at 11 early on, the Cleveland Cavaliers rattled off a 24-7 run to finish off the first quarter. The Sixers fell into a 29-point deficit in the second quarter and headed into the locker room down 69-45 at halftime.
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At that point, the Sixers had two choices. They could have gone through the motions in the second half and decided it just wasn’t their night, particularly if the Cavs started the third quarter off strong. As Joel Embiid said after the game, past Sixers teams “would have just laid down and tried to move on to the next one.”
Instead, the Sixers opened the third quarter on an 11-0 run and got right back into the game. The end result? The biggest comeback win in LeBron’s career, the Sixers’ biggest comeback win in the past 30 years, and what Embiid first called a “top-five night for me since I’ve been in Philadelphia.” (He later amended that to top-three before admitting that he “just kind of made it up.”)
After the game, reporters naturally asked everyone on the team about the mood in the locker room at halftime. To a man, they responded that they viewed the halftime deficit as an early-season litmus test.
Nick Nurse: “There’s some veteran guys in there, and the voices at halftime were like, ‘It’s still a game. Settle down, and let’s start playing our game.’ They were pissed. They were down and pissed both. Getting over what just happened, realizing, ‘Oh my God, we’ve gotta snap out of it.’ And then getting ready to go to work.”
VJ Edgecombe: “We know that we’re gonna face a lot of adversity this year. That was one of them. It’s all about how we respond. That was the main thing when we went in the locker room. How are we gonna respond to being down 30 points, 29 points? How are we gonna respond?”
Tyrese Maxey: “My only message that I had, I said, ‘Well, it’s time to see what we’re made of.’ We gonna be some frontrunners and give in and only be happy when stuff is good? Or when stuff is bad, are we gonna fight and…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sixers-passed-major-test-against-181833483.html
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Publish date : 2026-10-23 18:18:00
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