Sixers are playing grown man hoops. LeBron James and Tyrese Maxey were again the adults against the Knicks.
Six games in, five of them wins, the Sixers have an identity. They have out-Knicksed the Knicks. They have out-Pacered the Pacers. They have done to the Cavaliers what good teams do to the Cavaliers.
Tyreese Maxey was a man in search of a shirt.
The Sixers superstar glanced toward his locker on the opposite side of the room. A throng of media members clogged his passage. He glanced back toward the training room but found little help there. After a few more moments of deliberation, a nearby teammate tossed him a sleeveless black T-Shirt. Maxey slipped it on and stepped in front of the cameras. There was only one problem: LeBron James’ shirt size is a heck of a lot bigger than his own.
“This shirt,” Maxey said with a rueful smile at the shirt’s gigantic armholes, his biceps suddenly reduced to a formless prepubescence.
Some nights, it would be a funny story. On this particular night, it was a metaphor. Less than an hour earlier, Maxey and James had led the Sixers to a 98-93 win over the Knicks, their second victory over the defending NBA champs in 10 days. The decisive bucket had come with 11.9 seconds left, Sixers up three, Maxey driving to the rim late in the shot clock, James crashing to put back the miss. The points were James’ 19th and 20th of the night, and the rebound his ninth. It was a fitting end to a night where the Sixers were, again, the biggest, baddest adults in the room.
» READ MORE: Sixers drop Knicks, 98-93, thanks to clutch moments from LeBron James and VJ Edgecombe
We are past the point of revelation. The continuation is the story. Six games in, five of them wins, the Sixers have an identity. They have out-Knicksed the Knicks. They have out-Pacered the Pacers. They have done to the Cavaliers what good teams do when the Cavaliers analytically win a game. They are winning in ways that teams must win when the sum of their parts is lacking. And, well, they have the parts.
Except, they didn’t have all of them on Friday. That was a big part of the story. Earlier in the day, Jaylen Brown’s name popped up on the injury report. An hour before gametime, he was downgraded to doubtful with what the team has called “jumper’s knee.” It was a potential fatal blow, as reflected in a Vegas line that jumped a couple points in the Knicks favor. Brown’s physical two-way prowess had played a big role in the Sixers’ season-opening 106-100 win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Team president Mike Gansey said on draft night that a team can never have too many guards. However true, it most certainly can have too few wings of a certain size.
And yet. . .
Nick Nurse knew what he was doing when he inserted Dean Wade into the starting lineup in place of Brown. A 6-foot-9, 230-pound defensive force masquerading as yeoman, Wade almost single-handedly derailed the Knicks early on by preventing them from doing what they thought they’d be able to do. The Sixers jumped out to a 29-19 lead and basically held it until the latter stages of the second half. They did it with a possession-to-possession intensity on the defensive end. Credit Tyrese Maxey and V.J. Edgecombe and even Anfernee Simons for their on-ball defense against Knicks dynamo Jalen Brunson. Credit Joel Embiid, who is moving as easy and controlled as he ever has, in conjunction with his usual physical presence in the middle.
But credit Wade, too.
“You can always be in every game when you defend at a high level,” James said.
Wade’s front-line defense on OG Anunoby, combined with his ability to switch and his nose for the ball, were everything the Sixers needed to make up for Brown’s absence on the defensive end. That he scored zero points on the offensive end is the kind of thing a team like the Sixers can live with. Let’s not forget, there was a brief moment in time when Wade was the team’s marquee offseason signing.
“When you have that many good defensive possessions it’s going to take you a long way,” head coach Nick Nurse said.
Nobody expected this. The defense. The intensity. The exertion of possession-to-possession competitiveness that inevitably coalesces into an outcome that feels like the natural order of things. When the Sixers traded for Jaylen Brown, and then signed James, the potential outcomes were presumed to range from the early-ish 2000’s Miami Heat-les to a late-stage casino act whose original lead singer passed away decades beforehand.
» READ MORE: Significant injuries are mounting a week into the NBA season. And the Sixers haven’t been spared.
Turns out, the Sixers are the bouncers.
“We definitely know it’s going to be a physical battle when you play those guys,” said Maxey, who scored 27 points on 10-of-19 shooting. “If you’re going to play them, and you’re going to try to win a basketball game against them, you’re going to have to get into a physical battle. That’s just how it is.”
Maxey played a big role in that. Before the Sixers’ home opener, Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson was asked what he’d seen on film from his opponent. His first reaction: Maxey has somehow gotten better. Before Friday night’s game, Nurse explained it as Maxey’s natural-born maturity manifesting in a self-understanding that he is the best player on the court. It has been most evident in Maxey’s strength and confidence at the rim, along with his readiness and willingness to pull it from deep.
On Friday, you saw it in the way he commanded through deference. The Knicks stormed back to take a 90-89 lead, which the Sixers quickly answered. Then, with 33.6 seconds left, Maxey passed out of a double team to VJ Edgecombe, who drilled a three-pointer from the top of the arc to put them up by two possessions.
Beat reporters Gina Mizell and Chris Hine break down their most intriguing quotes from LeBron James and Tyrese Maxey during the preseason, along with what they most hope to learn about this revamped roster during the first month of the season. Watch here.
Watch the full interview below and subscribe to the Sixers Extra podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
More than anything, though, this was a night where you saw James’ presence manifest itself. He has always been a shape-shifting superstar, capable of being whatever he needs to be given the setting and circumstance. Here, we saw what that looks like with five games under his belt. His 20 points, nine rebounds, eight assists somehow understate his involvement. They do not give him credit for speed and decisiveness of his passing as a connector on the perimeter, nor do they illustrate the intentionality of each of his buckets, from his off-ball back-cuts to his bully-ball drives against Mikal Bridges.
Know who you are. Know who those around you need you to be. These are the hallmarks of adulthood. The Sixers suddenly look like a bunch of guys who know what it means.
