October 23, 2026
Bill Streicher/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The Sixers' four All-Stars powered them to a 29-point comeback in Thursday's home opener.
Welcome to Friday film, where each week we will dive into noteworthy performances, trends, adjustments, highlights or lowlights surrounding the 2026-27 Sixers.
PHILADELPHIA – It takes a whole lot to erase a 29-point deficit, and in their home opener on Thursday night the Sixers needed all four of their All-Stars to take ownership of the game.
That is exactly what they got: Tyrese Maxey kept his team afloat in the first half, then got off to a hot start early in the third quarter. LeBron James powered a continued offensive surge with secondary scoring and constant facilitating. Joel Embiid, finally, found his stroke in the mid-range and pummeled mismatches, putting the Cleveland Cavaliers in binds. When Embiid needed a breather, Jaylen Brown immediately picked him up and turned into an old-fashioned closer. It was a tremendous team effort to beat a team with the continuity and familiarity the Sixers currently lack.
In the first Friday film of the 2026-27 season, diving into the offensive efforts that went into an electric night of basketball:
For the second game in a row, the only member of this group of stars to have their best from start to finish was Maxey. "I'm not impressed," Embiid said, because that is "just what he does. He puts the work in and he shows up and he does it." Maxey scored at all three levels, on and off the ball; his 32 points gave the Sixers just enough margin for error:
Every basket from Tyrese Maxey's 32-point performance in the Sixers' home opener on Thursday: pic.twitter.com/KqKUYufGkF
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) October 23, 2026
"Yeah. And it should flow organically like it did, especially in the second half," James said. "We should never have to put pressure on ourselves to feel like we’ve got to do too much offensively. When a guy has a good rhythm, we just try to feed them. But it comes through the system of the offense and it doesn't look forced. And I think that's what was able to help us not turn the ball over as much in the second half. It just looked organic."
James will be the best entry passer Embiid ever gets a post touch from, and an easy finish courtesy of James got Embiid going. And while much of the focus has rightfully been on Embiid's defensive resurgence, the Sixers have needed him to find himself offensively.
"It almost feels like I haven't been healthy in so long that I forgot how to play basketball," Embiid said, but his mid-range prowess finally made its return in the second half – and so did his unstoppable interior force. These Sixers can force mismatches at an incredible rate, and that gives Embiid chances to overpower smaller defenders. Embiid scored 15 points on 5-for-6 shooting in the second half:
Joel Embiid pummeled mismatches and found his mid-range stroke in the second half of the Sixers' home opener on Thursday: pic.twitter.com/9XivqM0mk3
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) October 23, 2026
After Embiid got hot in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse had a tough decision to make. It is hard to pull a red-hot superstar in the midst of a red-hot comeback in front of a red-hot crowd. But the Sixers have targeted minutes totals for James and Embiid, and they both needed to rest in order to close the game and hit those targets. The crowd booed Adem Bona for checking in; every Sixers fan knows what it has meant when Embiid checks out at a critical juncture of a game.
That is where Brown put his foot down. He created three straight baskets for himself, scoring six unanswered points in just over a minute. As Maxey expended significant energy defending James Harden across all 94 feet, Brown's jolt was exactly what the Sixers needed at the right time. Brown, guarding well above his size in his own right as he took on the Evan Mobley assignment, got the job done.
"He brings just a different dynamic for our team, offensively and defensively," Maxey said. "It's a wrinkle that we could throw in there at any given moment. He can guard bigs, he can guard guards. Like tonight, I told him, ‘Listen, I'm going to guard James in the third and fourth quarter. Early on, I need you to score the ball.’ He was aggressive and he did that."
Jaylen Brown scored 10 points in the fourth quarter of the Sixers' win on Thursday, including three baskets in a row right after Joel Embiid checked out and two dagger transition finishes: pic.twitter.com/7Muc5bs2JV
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) October 23, 2026
"We all played at a high level," Embiid said. "Everybody had their moment. ‘Rese had his moments. JB had his moments. Bron had his moments. I had my moments. Going back to the question about sacrifice, when I said that it's not necessary, I don't like that word, it's just we have a bunch of talented guys, so, ‘Tyrese, just go ahead and do your thing.' 'Me, do my thing.' 'JB, do your thing.’ And we just play off of that and we just trust each other and make the right plays over and over to put ourselves in a position to succeed."
There is, famously, only one ball. And on Thursday, the Cavaliers became helpless as the Sixers' four leading scorers took turns putting that ball in the basket. They have passed their first two tests.
"Obviously, we're a new team, but at the end of the day, we have a goal we're trying to accomplish, and that comes with storms that we're going to have to weather," VJ Edgecombe said. "We have to weather the storms. So we’ve got to fight through a lot of adversity. It looks good on paper with the names and everything, but at the end of the day, we’ve still got to go out there and play hard. I feel like that game just kind of showed just a little bit of a testament to who we are, what we can be."
