Second-half surge helps Sixers beat Blazers to secure second win in a row

The Sixers picked up one of their best wins since the trade deadline on Sunday, beating the Portland Trailblazers 109-103.

Quentin Grimes and VJ Edgecombe both had career-nights, and Justin Edwards continued his strong stretch of games since Tyrese Maxey’s injury.

Here’s what we learned from the Sixers’ win:

The Sixers have been historically bad in the third quarter so far this season. But against the Blazers on Sunday, the Sixers managed to win the third quarter, outscoring the Blazers 29-22 out of the break to end the quarter with a six-point lead.

After Nick Nurse said the Sixers lacked energy in the second half, which led to their collapse against the Nets, Grimes led the Sixers’ second-half charge, with a season-high 31-points, including a stretch of 10 consecutive points to build a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter.

At the end of last season, Grimes played some of the best basketball of his career in the absence of the Sixers’ other stars, and he’s picked up right where he left off last year in Maxey’s stead.

Edgecombe also put up a career-best 12 rebounds in his first double-double since Nov. 20.

“We know we’ve got to run, especially with [Donovan] Clingan sitting in the paint,” Edgecombe said. “You can’t go down there, for real, if we’re being completely honest, so we knew we had to run and start passing. We just had to take any chance we could get for an easy layup or dunk.”

It’s been a rough year for Andre Drummond, who’s struggled, especially defensively, for much of the season. Against the massive Blazers’ front-court, he was going to be a crucial piece of the Sixers’ game plan in his return from back spasms that sidelined him for two games.

But Drummond put together one of his best performances of the season, grabbing 17 rebounds. The Sixers were a team-high +14 in Drummond’s 35 minutes on the floor.

“It’s huge,” Nurse said of Drummond’s minutes. “Probably his best game. He looked really fresh and was great. I thought the biggest thing was he just plugged the paint. They maybe got one lob behind us tonight when we played him there, it was non-stop.”

The Sixers went 3-for-25 on Saturday against the Nets. They’d already improved on that mark by the end of the first half against Portland, making four three-pointers on 14 attempts.

Maxey, the Sixers’ all-time three-point shooting leader, is out injured for at least the next two weeks. Paul George is still suspended for 10 more days, and the Sixers dealt Jared McCain to the Thunder at the deadline, who, not to beat a dead horse, has shot 42.3% from three-point range since the trade.

NBA teams, on average, shoot 37 three-pointers per game. Maxey alone averaged 8.9. Having him out of the lineup takes a huge chunk out of the Sixers’ usual three-point shooting, leaving most of it into the hands of Grimes, Edgecombe, and Payne, who have struggled with efficiency from deep.

On Sunday, Edwards was the Sixers’ biggest success from three, going 3-for-5 from deep. But the team still took just 25 total attempts.