March 5, 2026, 10:10 a.m. ET

PHILADELPHIA — There won’t be a ton of people celebrating a 106-102 victory over the Utah Jazz for the Philadelphia 76ers, but it was a win they needed. Just a night after being blown out by the San Antonio Spurs and missing four starters, the Sixers were able to band together and earn an important win.

The Sixers are in a race to stay out of the play-in tournament as they sit now a full game ahead of the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat with 20 games left to play for Philadelphia. There is still a ton of work for the Sixers to do and they need to be able to stack wins, and a win over the Jazz is one they needed.

Even more so after being blown out by 40 in the loss to the Spurs.

“For sure,” said Quentin Grimes on Wednesday. “Last night was kind of embarrassing, a little bit, but you just flush it and get ready for this game. They’ve (the Jazz) been in a lot of closing games. Their record really isn’t an indication of how good their team is really. They got a lot of talented guys over there, but came out today and just played a good, solid game for 48 minutes.”

The Sixers started Trendon Watford, Adem Bona, and Dominick Barlow up front with so many players missing. They all played well while Tyrese Maxey and Grimes were able to handle the scoring from the perimeter. It allowed Philadelphia to bounce back.

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“They beat crap out of last night, man, but it was good for us,” Maxey said of bouncing back “I think we’re 4-4 after the break, or something like that. .500 pretty good. Listen, we in (the) 6 seed right now? I’m living with where we at. I’m happy with where we at right now. We got to keep playing together, keep winning games, keep stacking games. It’s not gonna be easy. We didn’t ask for it to be easy. We’re missing basically all of our starters tonight. Guys stepped up. Everybody. Q played really good. Bona played good, TWatt, Tyrese (Martin), the list goes on and on and on.”

The Sixers will embark on a tough 2-game road trip when they face the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday–two teams that Philadelphia is a combined 0-6 against. That will be its own challenge, but the Sixers can bask in the fact that they were able to handle business against the Jazz and keep things moving in the right direction.

“Every win’s important, but definitely felt good to get this one after what happened yesterday (Tuesday),” added Tyrese Martin. “I felt like we showed a lot of desperation and fight in the second half and fourth quarter to be able to pull that one out.”