{"id":508939,"date":"2026-01-01T02:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T02:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/508939\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T02:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T02:42:11","slug":"nick-nurse-heaps-praise-on-vj-edgecombe-after-sixers-beat-grizzlies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/508939\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Nurse heaps praise on VJ Edgecombe after Sixers beat Grizzlies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/philadelphia-76ers\/20\/\" data-autotag=\"b3f2a355-8d98-44c0-a603-3f9a2d8bc375\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> rookie guard VJ Edgecombe continues to show that he is no ordinary rookie. With the Sixers needing a boost on Tuesday against the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/memphis-grizzlies\/29\/\" data-autotag=\"14fae80b-1f91-422e-983f-9b615a7fd757\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Memphis Grizzlies<\/a>, Edgecombe shook off a slow start and once again showed up in the guts of the game.<\/p>\n<p>After scoring only nine points through the first three quarters, Edgecombe exploded for 13 points in the fourth as he went toe-to-toe with Grizzlies star Ja Morant and put on a show for the Sixers. He then knocked down the game-winning 3 with 1.7 seconds left in overtime to <a href=\"https:\/\/sixerswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/sixers\/2025\/12\/30\/player-grades-big-3-carries-sixers-to-big-road-win-over-grizzlies\/87967024007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lift Philadelphia to a 139-136 win in OT<\/a> to end a 3-game losing skid.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He\u2019s kind of just like that all the time,&#8221; coach Nick Nurse told reporters after the win. &#8220;Never really see him show much emotion. I think it&#8217;s an incredible quality. I think he just plays the game, and even the other night when he didn&#8217;t shoot it very good. He played really well. You know what I mean? I don&#8217;t know what he (shot) 3-for-16, but I was like, he played really good man.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Edgecombe has been dealing with an illness and didn&#8217;t shoot the ball well in the previous two losses to the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/chicago-bulls\/4\/\" data-autotag=\"405d8bcc-fb36-48bb-8870-95d5603bd7ae\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chicago Bulls<\/a> (4-for-13) and the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/25\/\" data-autotag=\"cd165858-eeda-4db8-a84a-db7a782e61e3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> (3-for-16), but was able to bounce back against the Grizzlies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just feel like, the other night, he&#8217;s still coming out of that sickness, and just didn&#8217;t feel quite right,&#8221; Nurse added.\u00a0&#8220;He\u00a0just didn&#8217;t quite have the conditioning, the legs, whatever, and\u00a0I\u00a0figured he bounced back tonight. That was a big bounce back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With that being said, for a rookie to come up big in these situations constantly is impressive. Nurse drew up a guard-to-guard screen between Edgecombe and Tyrese Maxey with the game tied and his two guards delivered. It&#8217;s an impressive moment for a player so young.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He\u00a0made a lot of big ones in that game,&#8221; Nurse explained. &#8220;I think the first thing it was nice to see that those guys got a little rhythm up top there for a good stretch of the game.\u00a0Just going that guard to guard screen, turned the corner a couple times, and when they put two on the ball, we kicked it back out, made the right read, and that&#8217;s all it turned into.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One has to give credit to Maxey for making the right play when being doubled by the Grizzlies down the stretch as well. That&#8217;s a big moment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tyrese just making the right read, and they probably made the right decision, putting two on Tyrese\u00a0so he couldn&#8217;t explode down the lane, but\u00a0he made\u00a0the right play,&#8221; Nurse finished. &#8220;But it&#8217;s a big shot.\u00a0Big\u00a0Shot. Obviously,\u00a0a game winner for rookie\u00a0is\u00a0pretty cool.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia 76ers rookie guard VJ Edgecombe continues to show that he is no ordinary rookie. With the Sixers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[679,7,920,919,329,311,3279,294,4196,293,177,4070,6,67,3117,6724,8181,310,179,61,134,678,207,132,66,83,312,256,1263,20172,971],"class_list":["post-508939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-memphis-grizzlies","tag-76ers","tag-basketball","tag-bulls","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-city","tag-edgecombe","tag-grizzlies","tag-maxey","tag-memphis","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-memphisgrizzlies","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-nick","tag-nick-nurse","tag-nurse","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-positive","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-thunder","tag-tyrese","tag-tyrese-maxey","tag-vj","tag-vj-edgecombe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115817542063559718","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}