Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe lead Embiid-less Sixers to 3–0 start

Philadelphia — The Sixers were being pushed to their fringes just four minutes into the game.

Adem Bona inspired with a sequence of timely rim protection that the Sixers dream of every time he enters a game. But when you attack the rim with the voracity that the Orlando Magic do, you're bound to lose a couple of battles along the way.

Bona maintained verticality on his jumps, but his arms kept coming forward when he went to meet white jerseys at the rim.

Two fouls. Andre Drummond rushed to the scorer's table.

The Sixers could not be anything less than cautious in this game. They were down Joel Embiid. Orlando represented a large, physical matchup to begin with. Philadelphia needed every big body at its disposal.

Even as the Sixers jetted out to an eight-point lead with transition play catalyzed by Bona's efforts at the defensive rim, trouble was brewing.

The Magic, whose only spell for an offensive slog is using their size in the paint, were onto something. Orlando had more made free throws than made field goals through the game's first 14 minutes. They got the Sixers trapped in cross-matches, leveraging the physicality to get to the line and supplement their poor shooting with freebies.

Philadelphia maintained a narrow advantage by getting out on the run. The shotmaking from Tyrese Maxey, Kelly Oubre Jr. and rookie sensation VJ Edgecombe neutralized Orlando's march to the foul line. But the Sixers were running out of juice on offense.

In checked Quentin Grimes, who promptly delivered a trio of threes to restore a comfortable lead for the home team.

Philadelphia spent the entire first half keeping Orlando at that arm's length. Edgecombe upped his offering on offense, depositing a three and a turnaround jumper in the middle of the lane.

Hell, that was half the story of the game. This is Maxey's team. That much is abundantly clear three games into the season. But as was the problem for a large portion of last season, even he runs out of answers eventually. 

The Magic got tired of his ass-kicking tour in the second half, sending blitzes and ice coverages to try to steer Maxey away from the basket. He could only turn corners so many times before Maxey had to concede that he didn't have a path to a quality shot.

And that was OK. 

Unlike last season, that was OK because Edgecombe was there to relieve the burden. To make the Magic pay a price for selling out on Maxey.

Almost nothing Edgecombe has done through his first three NBA games is ordinary.

He plays the game as if he's seen the worst things the world has to offer. Basketball presents no fear, no pressure when you can contextualize it rationally.

Has Edgecombe seen the world's worst? Doesn't seem like it.

Does he play the game with an understanding that failing won't be the worst thing in his world? Yes. Absolutely yes.

So when the Sixers needed someone to fill in the blanks for Maxey, Edgecombe was game to step up.

Right now, everything he's touching turns to gold. Aside from the occasional miss, Edgecombe can do no wrong. 

A teammate fumbles the ball, it goes right into Edgecombe's hands and he finds another teammate leaking down the floor for a score at the rim. He dribbles himself into a tight space, Edgecombe changes direction and floats the ball over the rim for a score right before the window closes.

His poise might be his greatest intangible gift. It feels like his teammates feed off it. 

"He's himself. I won't even compare him to anybody else. He's just very poised. He looks like he's been doing this for multiple years. He's very in control out there," Kelly Oubre Jr. said after the victory.

The veteran Oubre served as another solution when the Magic punched their way back into the game. He fought his way to the rim for scores through contact and knocked down a handful of jumpers in the paint to keep the Sixers cool.

And perhaps one of the most critical buckets of the game, Oubre was there to tip back a Maxey miss. The Magic would've had the ball down three with more than four minutes to play. Oubre's right-place-right-time effort restored the Sixers' two-possession lead.

Edgecombe's poise has earned him two 20-point outings in his first three NBA games. The rest of the top five of 2025 draft has combined for three.

"It's not that surprising to me. I think he's this good. I thought it right away. From the day we drafted him, he was where we asked him to be, all summer long, every single day — and that was working," Nick Nurse said after the win.

"He's got a tremendous engine to work every day, and you're going to get better when you do that."

With the Magic threatening late in the fourth quarter, the Sixers went with their other tremendous engine. The one who, according to Oubre, is "definitely playing with a little more of a chip on his shoulder".

Oubre describes these first few games as "the most angry" he's seen Maxey play.

All Mad Max could do after he laced a floater that pushed the Sixers' lead to 12 points with a little more than a minute to play was clap. That shot gave him 10 points in the fourth quarter. 

He was about to finish off a furious closing stretch with 12 of his game-high 43 points. Yet another masterpiece for him early in this season.

The Sixers are 3-0. They didn't win their third game last season until November 22. This third one without Embiid, against a team that had significant matchup advantages over the Sixers and was touted as an inner-circle Finals contender in the shallow Eastern Conference.

They've played three crunch-time games. At first it seemed like luck. Luck eventually runs out. But this feels like a product of preparation. They've been preparing for games like Monday's since before training camp.

The infamous no-fouls pickup games prepared them for night's like Monday.

"It made us tougher. I think that was the biggest thing that it did. It made us tougher," Maxey told reporters after the game.

"You got to play through some of those hits offensively. Defensively, you got to go out there and guard your yard sometimes, man."

The Sixers haven't just played through hits thus far. They've thrown some haymakers right back.