The Philadelphia 76ers overturned a 29-point deficit to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 114-106 at Xfinity Arena on Thursday night, with the Sixers cutting the gap to 10 in the third quarter before pulling away late.
The turning point came when Tyrese Maxey caught a pass from LeBron James in transition and, without taking a dribble, launched a 3-pointer. As the ball went through the net, forcing the Cavaliers to call a timeout, Maxey walked toward the fans behind the scorers’ table and screamed while Jaylen Brown celebrated alongside him and Joel Embiid roared on the other end of the court. On a team loaded with stars, Maxey led the crowd, which followed his lead all night.
Maxey finished with a game-high 32 points and added six assists. “It was just a great moment,” he said. “The crowd was into the game. We were just feeding off the crowd, feeding off our energy, feeding off our resilience.”
The comeback was the Cavaliers’ largest blown lead and the Sixers’ largest comeback in the play-by-play era. It was also the largest comeback of James’ 24-year career.
A flat start and a halftime rebuke
Two nights after opening the season with a win over the reigning champion New York Knicks, the Sixers looked outclassed from the opening tip. They turned the ball over, could not get stops and missed layups. Brown managed just four points in his lowest-scoring first half at home since March 2025, while Philadelphia committed 15 first-half turnovers, its most in a half since January 2024.
The Cavaliers took a 69-45 halftime lead, which tied their largest in a season-opening half in franchise history and matched their largest halftime lead over the 76ers in franchise history. As the half ended, the crowd, most wearing white opening night shirts printed with the Sixers roster and coach Nick Nurse, loudly booed.
Maxey said he challenged his teammates during the break. “I said, ‘Well, it’s time to see what we made of. Are we going to be some front-runners and only be happy when stuff is good? Or when stuff is bad, are we going to fight and be resilient?’ And we did that,” he said.
Third-quarter surge and defensive adjustments
The Sixers responded with a quarter that Brown said “shifted the game”. They opened the second half on an 8-0 run and outscored Cleveland 37-21 in the third quarter. Philadelphia still trailed by eight going into the fourth, but it took the lead at the 6:54 mark when Embiid hit a 16-foot jump shot over centre Jarrett Allen. The Sixers never gave it back.
Nurse said his side had struggled to defend the Cavaliers’ mid-pick-and-roll plays in the first half. According to GeniusIQ, Cleveland ran 27 direct picks in the first half and averaged 1.08 points on them. In the second half, the Cavaliers ran 20 direct picks and averaged only 0.56 points. Nurse shifted the team’s defensive assignments, and the change worked. Cleveland scored just 37 points after halftime, and guard Donovan Mitchell, who had 30 points through three quarters, was held to two points in the fourth, when the game was already out of reach.
The Sixers also took much better care of the ball, turning it over only twice in the second half compared with 15 times for the Cavaliers. “They were just way, way, way tougher than us in the first half,” Maxey said. “They were just punking us honestly, and we did a good job of playing back second.”
Reaction from the players
Embiid said the resilience was different from past Sixers teams he had been part of during his 11-year career in Philadelphia. “No shade to anybody that’s been here, but in the past, a lot of people would’ve just laid down and tried to move on to the next one,” he said. He added: “Yeah, it was different. I said last game, after the game, it just feels different.”
James cautioned that the team cannot rely on such comebacks. “You don’t want to rely on that,” he said, laughing. “I think it’s great to know deep down we’re not going to have that quit mentality … but you don’t want to put yourself in too many of those situations.”
Embiid described the night as a “top-three” performance of his career, while guard VJ Edgecombe said it was the best atmosphere he has played in as a professional. James called Philadelphia “one of the best sports cities.” The boos that greeted the Sixers at halftime had become raucous cheers by the end of the game. “I’ve been here for a long time. … I have no words,” Embiid said. “That was amazing.”