The Sixers rode a dream first half to a bounce-back win Monday night in Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They earned a split in their back-to-back against the Raptors with a 115-102 victory.<\/p>\n
Tyrese Maxey scored 33 points. Joel Embiid had 27 points, eight rebounds and four assists.<\/p>\n
The 22-16 Sixers had a full-strength squad. The 24-17 Raptors\u2019 RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl and Ja\u2019Kobe Walter were out with injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Sixers will host the Cavs on both Wednesday and Friday nights. Here are observations on their win over the Raptors: <\/p>\n
Maxey shows off three-level skills\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paul George scored the Sixers\u2019 first five points on two free throws and a pull-up three-pointer. VJ Edgecombe and Embiid also canned early long-distance jumpers.<\/p>\n
Maxey wasted no time in displaying his three-level scoring prowess. He sped past defenders, hit mid-range jumpers, fired away well beyond the arc and appeared to pose a legitimate threat from almost anywhere.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old tallied 18 points in the first quarter on 6-for-7 shooting. Through 36 games, Maxey\u2019s averaged 30.9 points. It\u2019s remarkable that, if Maxey finishes the season with at least 30 points per game, the Sixers will have had four such years in the past five. Embiid did it three straight times between the 2021-22 and 2023-24 campaigns and won two scoring titles in the process. Maxey currently leads the Eastern Conference in scoring and sits third in the NBA.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n As a team, the Sixers shot 14 for 17 from the floor in the first quarter (7 for 8 from three-point range). The Sixers\u2019 star trio had 37 of the team\u2019s 45 first-period points.<\/p>\n Embiid above the rim <\/p>\n Unfortunately for the Raptors, a new quarter did not mean the Sixers\u2019 offense drastically cooled off.<\/p>\n Embiid jammed in his most powerful dunk of the season in the second quarter. He accepted an Edgecombe pass, took a hard dribble through the lane and elevated for a one-hand slam that the Sixers\u2019 bench enjoyed. Beyond the entertaining two points, it’s clearly an excellent indicator with Embiid’s health that he’s willing and able to score in that fashion above the rim. <\/p>\n Embiid’s now just three points away from the milestone of 13,000 career points. He\u2019s seventh on the Sixers\u2019 all-time scoring list.<\/a><\/p>\n Toronto remained unable to handle the Maxey-Embiid two-man game. Maxey sunk yet another three off of an Embiid dribble handoff to stretch the Sixers\u2019 advantage to 73\u201344. They led by as many as 31 points late in the second quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Sixers were due for a good shooting game after subpar outings in their win over the Magic <\/a>and overtime loss Sunday to the Raptors. <\/a>Their first half Monday night was better than anyone could\u2019ve possibly envisioned.<\/p>\n Lowry feels the love<\/p>\n Edgecombe was a significant part of the much-improved shooting effort. The rookie posted 15 points (5 for 7 from the field, 5 for 6 from three-point range) and eight assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Toronto finally gathered some momentum late in the third quarter, making a run and cutting the Sixers’ lead to 18 points on a Gradey Dick layup.<\/p>\n The Raptors hung around in the fourth, though never to a degree that truly alarmed the Sixers. For several minutes, the main lingering question was whether all the fans asking for Sixers head coach Nick Nurse to sub in Kyle Lowry would get their wish.<\/p>\n Much to everyone’s delight, Lowry checked in at the 1:57 mark. The six-time All-Star and Raptors legend basked in the moment and thanked the crowd.<\/p>\n The 39-year-old tried three jumpers and came up empty. That didn’t diminish the cheers at the final buzzer. Lowry held the ball as the clock expired and raised his arm to acknowledge the love again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sixers rode a dream first half to a bounce-back win Monday night in Toronto.\u00a0 They earned a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,936,6,678,207,3817,5902,4186,29161,1263,971],"class_list":{"0":"post-533168","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-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","14":"tag-philadelphia76ers","15":"tag-sixers-analysis","16":"tag-sixers-news","17":"tag-sixers-observations","18":"tag-tyrese-maxey","19":"tag-vj-edgecombe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115885851587565819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533168","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=533168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}