{"id":517392,"date":"2026-01-05T03:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T03:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/517392\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T03:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T03:51:15","slug":"sixers-see-how-good-we-can-be-look-like-they-might-have-fun-road-ahead-nbc-sports-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/517392\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixers \u2018see how good we can be,\u2019 look like they might have fun road ahead\u00a0 \u2013 NBC Sports Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

VJ Edgecombe surely spoke for just about everyone in the cramped visiting locker room at Madison Square Garden when he paused during the middle of his media scrum with an admission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know what today is,\u201d Edgecombe said.<\/p>\n

Whatever the day \u2014 Saturday, it turns out \u2014 Edgecombe\u2019s first long NBA road trip ended in fun fashion. No one minded thinking about the Sixers\u2019 road ahead, too.<\/p>\n

The 19-14 Sixers concluded their five-game trip with three straight wins. There was minimal daydreaming required for those inclined to picture a best-case playoff scenario where the Sixers\u2019 stars are healthy, their backcourt a youthful, joyful powerhouse, their role players ready and able to do valuable, unglamorous jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence that only Kelly Oubre Jr. (left knee LCL sprain) and Trendon Watford (left adductor strain) have been sidelined lately.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for three games in a row, we\u2019ve had the same lineup,\u201d Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said postgame. \u201cYou\u2019d have to check your notes, that might be a record for us. \u2026 I really don\u2019t remember that happening for a long time. So we\u2019ll take that, and we can hopefully get to four on Monday (vs. the Nuggets).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both Edgecombe and Tyrese Maxey made many special plays on both ends of the floor in Saturday\u2019s victory over the Knicks. <\/a>They also appeared tireless and sometimes even immune to misses. The pair totaled 62 points on 24-for-38 shooting. Joel Embiid joined them in the highly efficient department with 26 points on 9-for-15 shooting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the main thing is we see how good we can be when we\u2019re gelling,\u201d Edgecombe said, \u201cwhen everybody\u2019s touching the rock, when everybody\u2019s playing hard, when everybody\u2019s bought into their role. I think we see how good we can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embiid was in a tongue-in-cheek mood after the game. The seven-time All-Star\u2019s final make was his first dunk all season, an unguarded flush with 24.9 seconds left. He raised his arms, grinned and ran down the floor with one finger in the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFeels good,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cEasy one. I wish it would\u2019ve been one off the backboard. That\u2019s the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his career, Embiid has a 17-4 regular-season record against the Knicks.<\/a> He\u2019s heard plenty of boos over the years in New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always good to be here and talk back to the fans,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were quiet today, but I guess that\u2019s what happens when you\u2019re losing the whole game. But I always have fun going back and forth with them. Sometimes it\u2019s good to be liked, sometimes it\u2019s good to be hated.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Embiid himself would acknowledge, nothing is ever set in stone for him and the Sixers. He\u2019s played very well during the team\u2019s three-game streak \u2014 27.3 points, 8.0 rebounds, 6.3 assists per contest \u2014 but sustained health has been elusive since Embiid suffered a left knee lateral meniscus tear in late January of 2024. Going back much further, he knows all about strange, sad plot twists that have derailed promising seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the Sixers are foolish to like how they\u2019re playing and believe they can keep improving.<\/p>\n

After enduring a nightmare of a season, they\u2019re on track to win far more than 24 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super rewarding, given the season we had last year and everything we had to deal with \u2014 the injuries, new players, just gaining rhythm with one another,\u201d Paul George said. \u201cThis year we\u2019ve still been battling injuries and have still had some unfortunate luck on that side, but I think the biggest difference is we just feel better as a group. We trust in the process of this team. \u2026 You just naturally gain camaraderie and I think it\u2019s carrying over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s safe to say everyone in this locker room is starting to enjoy being out on that floor, playing on both ends. We\u2019re just gelling. \u2026 Everything that we\u2019ve been trying to connect, it\u2019s translating on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does Nurse find the recent success satisfying after a year full of hardship exception signings and undermanned, outmatched nights?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a long way to go,\u201d he said. \u201cI told you at the start of the season that we were in a big hole we had to dig out of. We\u2019re still digging. Still, conditioning, rhythm, health can get a little better. I think we just build on that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VJ Edgecombe surely spoke for just about everyone in the cramped visiting locker room at Madison Square Garden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,936,6,6724,526,678,207,3817,5902,4186,1263,971],"class_list":{"0":"post-517392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-joel-embiid","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nick-nurse","13":"tag-paul-george","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","16":"tag-philadelphia76ers","17":"tag-sixers-analysis","18":"tag-sixers-news","19":"tag-tyrese-maxey","20":"tag-vj-edgecombe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115840462732312894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517392","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=517392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}