Jabari Walker shuts down Cooper Flagg, Tyrese Maxey gets hot when it counts, and other takeaways from a Sixers win over Dallas

As much as the 76ers may want things to change, they’ve remained the same. Yet, it has yielded positive results.

Meanwhile, VJ Edgecombe and Dallas Mavericks guard Cooper Flagg are far from ordinary rookies. But on Saturday, Edgecombe shone brighter.

And Joel Embiid is, once again, wading into the dangerous territory of being disqualified for regular-season awards.

Those things stood out in the Sixers’ 121-114 victory over the Dallas Mavericks at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

Coming off Friday’s 116-107 statement victory over the New York Knicks, the Sixers (16-11) were expected to have a comfortable win over the Mavs. Yet, they once again struggled in the third quarter and needed to mount a fourth-quarter comeback.

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The Mavs shot 78.9% (15-for-19) in the third quarter to outscore the Sixers, 35-23, to take a 97-91 advantage into the fourth. In addition to not getting stops, they hit just 8 of 23 shots.

But the Sixers opened the fourth quarter with a 24-7 run to take a 115-104 lead on Tyrese Maxey’s three-pointer with 6 minutes, 35 seconds remaining in the game.

Maxey scored 16 of his game-high 38 points in the fourth quarter on 6-for-10 shooting. The Sixers went with a lineup of Jared McCain, Jabari Walker, Adem Bona, Edgecombe, and Maxey for the final 13:11. That grouping shot 50% from the field in the fourth quarter while holding the Mavs to 30.4%.

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Nurse stuck with that lineup because he felt his trio of guards in McCain, Maxey, and Edgecombe were all impacting the game.

“As far as the two bigs, I felt Jabari was playing Flagg super physical,” the coach said. “And the other thing, we started doing some switching between the four and five. Jabari also would get switched onto Davis and was playing him physically to get him off the block and battle him.

“I don’t know how many rebounds Jabari got. But it sure seems like he snatched a bunch of them down there, that was also critical.”

Walker, a power forward, grabbed six of his eight rebounds in the fourth quarter. He also scored his only two points and recorded his steal in the quarter. On a two-way contract, Walker also helped to hold Flagg to four points on 2-for-6 shooting in the final quarter.

“We got a great scout report,” Walker said. “ … I think [Dominick] Barlow started off on him. Big credit to him. He had a great night tonight, also. I want to show him some love with that. I think either one of us could have finished the game. We both understand that about each other. So, some games it is going to be [like that]. So I just tried to feed off the energy he had tonight.”

He also studied how Barlow forced Flagg into certain spots defensively, and implemented that in the fourth quarter.

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Barlow, the starting power forward who is also on a two-way contract, tied a career high with 21 points on 9-for-13 shooting.

The Sixers have now won seven games this season while trailing at the start of the fourth quarter, which is tied for first in the NBA.

Sixers fans know Edgecombe is special. And as the No. 1 overall pick, they were aware of all the hype surrounding Flagg coming into the game.

The 19,056 in attendance found out Saturday that the hype surrounding Flagg is legit. At 6-foot-9, Flagg, who turns 19 on Sunday, is a mix of explosiveness, power, and a solid basketball IQ.

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Before Walker kept him in check late, Flagg had his way with Barlow through three quarters, scoring 20 of his 24 points on 6-for-10 shooting. He also went 8-for-8 from the foul line and recorded all three of his assists during that time.

But even before the fourth quarter, Flagg took a backseat to Edgecombe.

The 6-5, 195-pound shooting guard got things going early for the Sixers, scoring 14 points on 5-for-7 shooting in the first quarter.

“He’s making all kinds of plays,” Nurse said. “I think that’s the big thing. Where do you want to start? Big rebounds? Knocking the ball away? But probably the offensive rebounds [three], the biggest ones are you get a tough stop. It’s a fairly close game. We get the ball out, he takes it coast to coast and move through for an easy bucket when scoring is pretty hard in the fourth, right? Those are like super momentum plays.”

He and Flagg don’t play like rookies, which has been indicative of how several of the league’s top rookies have performed this season.

“It’s amazing,” Nurse said. “You are right on with your point. The rookies that have impacted in a big way is really something. Especially considering those two guys are really young. I guess they’re really good. I think most rookies, you will see flashes. You will see one great game, then six go by. These guys are starting to do it like night in, night out. And to me, that’s like what the NBA is.

Saturday marked the 16th game that Embiid has missed this season because of left knee injury management, right knee injury management, right knee swelling, and an illness.

He missed back-to-back games Friday and Saturday’s back-to-back due to right knee injury management and an illness.

After he missed Saturday’s game, Nurse was asked if he had a setback with his health.

“Nah, he went into last night with both of those things,” the coach said of the knee and illness. “He just didn’t have a great week with the illness and a little bit of soreness in the right knee. And fortunately, we can get through the week and … get another couple of days, and hopefully get him going.”

The NBA, in cooperation with the National Basketball Players Association, instituted a 65-game rule two seasons ago for players to qualify for awards, hoping it would deter players and teams from relying on load management.

Embiid was disqualified in each of the last two seasons. He played in 39 games in 2023-24 and 19 in 2024-25. The most games Embiid can play this season is 66 if he doesn’t miss another game, starting with Tuesday’s home game against the Brooklyn Nets. But his availability for all those games is doubtful, since Embiid is not expected to play back-to-back nights.

Nurse’s first season was in 2023-24. Embiid was playing better than his MVP season before having his first of two left knee surgeries in 14 months.

“He had a serious injury and hasn’t quite been able to get back,” Nurse said. “You asked me if I’m empathetic, absolutely. You know, I thought we were going [upward] for a bit. I think we got to try to keep going that way.”