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It was only the first quarter of the 13th game of the Sixers’ season, so there seemed to be no cause for alarm (and never mind the booing). Still, they were down 17 to a Toronto team on the second half of a back-to-back and playing without its two best players. There was at least the possibility Thursday that it was one of those nights every NBA team has on occasion, where the mood and the energy and the desire are just … off.
It would be easy to reach that conclusion, after Boston smacked the Sixers around Tuesday, in what was supposed to be the Jaylen Brown Revenge Game. Also, LeBron James sat out against the Raptors. The official reason was “low back/sciatica management,” though this seems comparable to that time years ago when the Spurs rested Tim Duncan and listed him this way in the boxscore: “DNP-OLD.”
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When Nick Nurse called timeout with 2:40 left in the first and his team down 32-16, he said he was thinking in the simplest terms.
“I just want the players to play well,” he said, adding that everyone seemed to be searching for a rhythm, or seeking to “shake something off from the last game or whatever,” as he put it.
They fell 17 back moments later, but soon found their inspiration, soon manufactured their own energy. Reserves Anfernee Simons and Jabari Walker found it by looking back to their time on some wretched Portland teams. VJ Edgecombe found it by looking forward to a potential spot in the NBA slam-dunk contest.
And Tyrese Maxey found it by looking over to the sideline, to his infant daughter.
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The end result was a 123-112 Sixers victory over the Scottie Barnes– and Kawhi Leonard-less Raptors. Maxey scored 27, and Joel Embiid, who limped off in the first quarter after bumping knees with a Raptor, returned and finished with 20. Edgecombe enjoyed a Swiss Army Knife kinda night – 15 points, eight rebounds, eight assists, three steals and a block – and the bench brigade of Simons, Walker and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope contributed 37 points, including 9-for-12 three-point sniping.
“You learn once you’re coming off the bench to kind of read the game before you get in there,”…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sixers-finding-success-manufacturing-own-201434965.html
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Publish date : 2026-11-14 20:14:00
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