December 20, 2025
Brad Penner/Imagn Images
VJ Edgecombe's first game at the venue known as "the world's most famous arena" was outstanding.
NEW YORK – Long Island Lutheran Middle & High School is about 30 miles away from Madison Square Garden. In his final two years before heading off to college, it is where VJ Edgecombe honed his craft as he worked toward a goal of being able to play basketball on much larger stages.
On Friday, Edgecombe walked up an infamously long ramp and into perhaps the largest stage of his life: a battle against the NBA Cup champion New York Knicks on their esteemed home floor as the featured NBA game on the East Coast. He scored 23 points, including arguably the seven most important ones of the entire game in crunch time. He put together a wire-to-wire defensive masterclass against Jalen Brunson, one of the league's most brilliant perimeter scorers. It was electric. It was jaw-dropping.
And yet, for the umpteenth time, no other members of the Sixers could look reporters in the eye and claim they were surprised.
Well, except for...
"He surprised me a little bit tonight," Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said. "...He's really good, man. He's getting better, too."
Tyrese Maxey, who scored 30 points in his return to action after a 12-day layoff, could not even muster that.
"I want to say yes, but sadly, no," Maxey said. "That's just who he is. We realized that [on opening night]... the lights came on, and he came on winning."
Nobody has less surprised by Edgecombe's blazing NBA start than the 20-year-old rookie himself. Dating back to the summer he has made it abundantly clear that his confidence and self-belief are interminable. Whether he submits a standout showing or experiences some bumps in the road, Edgecombe presents the same expression and mood. But for a kid who spent some of his teenage years not too far away, having a signature performance at Madison Square Garden was really something.
"That was amazing, man," Edgecombe said. "It was everything I expected it to be... It's a good first game in The Garden for sure."
These days, The Garden revolves around Brunson, the superstar son of a Knicks player-turned-coach and the player credited for putting New York basketball back at the center of the NBA world. Just 24 hours prior to Friday's game, Brunson added to his long list of clutch moments by burying a game-winning three and, in tow, the Indiana Pacers. Brunson is an unorthodox, methodical and devastating offensive force, a player whose scoring methodology cannot really be duplicated.
JALEN BRUNSON DOUBLE BANG FOR THE WIN.
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) December 19, 2025
VOTE ALL-STAR ⭐️ https://t.co/HWjDFYAboJ pic.twitter.com/jdfh3FOTlo
After the game, Edgecombe said what every player says after defending a player of Brunson's caliber: that they just wanted to make things difficult, that they have a lot of respect for their opponent, that they studied as much film as they could. "Not going to hold him scoreless," Edgecombe said of Brunson. But, if not for one early miscue, he would have done exactly that.
Brunson scored the first points of the game by getting Edgecombe up in the air with one of his deadly shot fakes, driving and laying the ball in. He took nine more shots with the rookie as his primary defender between that and the buzzer sounding. None of them went in, and almost all of those misses can be attributed to stellar defensive work by Edgecombe:
VJ Edgecombe's defense on Jalen Brunson on Friday was quite possibly the most impressive feat of his NBA career so far.
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) December 20, 2025
Brunson attempted 10 field goals against Edgecombe. He made the first one. Then he missed the last nine.
Every Brunson FGA vs. Edgecombe in the Sixers' win: pic.twitter.com/NUhEhduCIr
"Probably most importantly," Nurse said, "he was just getting over every ball screen and staying in front of Brunson."
Edgecombe did see Brunson a handful of times in October when the Sixers and Knicks played a pair of preseason exhibitions in Abu Dhabi. Edgecombe almost scoffed at the idea of those experiences being helpful – nobody really tries in the preseason, he argued – and said he leaned more on film. For any player to repeatedly stay grounded on Brunson's unique fakes and stick with him amid constant pivots is wildly impressive. For a player to do it before Christmas Day of their rookie season is hard to fathom.
And yet, the best defensive performance of Edgecombe's young NBA career will not even come close to grabbing the most headlines after Friday's game, because he scored in bunches during two stretches in which the Sixers were desperate for offensive jolts. First it was in the third quarter, when Maxey and Paul George sat with five minutes on the clock and the game tied. It is a situation in which multiple games have gotten away from them.
For the second game in a row, Edgecombe prevented that from happening, scoring some key buckets and helping a makeshift Sixers unit with four reserves win that five-minute stretch.
"I think we're figuring it out a little bit better now," Nurse said. "...It's probably gotten figured out better, probably because of Tyrese's absence, where VJ got to command the team and get us organized and get us in situations where he's going to be the primary creator. And I think we just feel better that we can keep surviving on the offensive end a bit better."
Edgecombe acknowledged that "I tend to be slow in the third quarter," but said his revamped aggression is not meant to be specific to the first 12 minutes out of halftime. He wants to be more assertive all game long.
In the last three minutes and change of the game, the mission was accomplished. New York was making a late push on a Sixers lead that was never safe. Knicks fans were getting louder and louder... until a 20-year-old who attended nearby Long Island Lutheran Middle & High School told them to quiet down.
Edgecombe hit a tough pull-up mid-range jumper at the end of the shot clock (he probably got fouled), then connected from long range to make the Knicks pay for doubling Maxey and quite literally motioned for everybody to settle down. The most memorable play came next; Maxey missed a difficult leaner from five feet and Edgecombe, with his remarkable athleticism, soared in and threw down a put-back dunk. As if that was not enough, Edgecombe then dove to the floor to recover a loose ball, triggering a possession that generated the dagger three from Maxey. It was an unspeakably impressive sequence of mature, winning plays:
VJ Edgecombe's outstanding late-game efforts to help the Sixers notch a win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Friday, from two clutch jumpers to a put-back dunk to a hustle play that created the dagger three for Tyrese Maxey: pic.twitter.com/ITOSy3PwJ9
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) December 20, 2025
Edgecombe's rookie year has already had ebbs and flows just like any other. But for a player who has experienced some incredible highs early on, his words after those games are just about the same as his words after mediocre showings. Friday night was no exception.
"I just try to play hard, to be honest," Edgecombe said. "That's the main thing: I want to win. And like I say, I'm diving on the floor, diving in the crowd. Whatever it takes for me to win, to be honest."
MORE: Sixers-Knicks instant observations
