October 21, 2026
Brad Penner/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Joel Embiid and the Sixers held the line in Tuesday's season-opening win over the defending champion Knicks.
The Philadelphia 76ers already knew they were different.
There was a hunch when the trade was swung with Boston for Jaylen Brown over the summer, but it was for certain the second LeBron James picked them as his next – and likely final – destination.
The talent on paper, between Brown, James, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe as a starting five, was overwhelming on paper, and so was the collective championship pedigree brought in between Brown and James.
But that was all on paper. Tuesday night's opener at Madison Square Garden brought on the first, and official, look at how these star-studded Sixers would actually fit together.
And down the stretch, they buckled down. The Sixers beat the defending champion New York Knicks, 106-100.
Game 1 of 82 wasn't perfect by any means, and you didn't have to go far within the visiting locker room for a Sixer to tell you as much, but when push came to shove through the second half, they never relented.
Brown hit a buzzer-beating three at the end of the third quarter that kept the Sixers up seven. With nine minutes left in the fourth, Embiid denied Andre Drummond's drive in for a layup and caught the rebound for a shift in possession. With less than two left, Maxey picked off an OG Anunoby pass for a fast-break dunk, and then in the dwindling seconds, James caught a hurried and off-the-mark three-point attempt from Jalen Brunson, and shielded the ball away to draw the checkmate foul.
The Sixers never gave up the lead once Brown made that three, and through the second half, they held the Knicks to just 42 points – and only 18 in the third quarter.
Jaylen Brown had 19 points and a clutch three in his Sixers debut.
And already, that's different for the Sixers, because go back to the playoffs about six months ago and this very similar Knicks team was blowing right past them on the way to a second-round sweep, and then, a world title.
Not this time, though.
“Stayed calm, kept running our stuff, trusting what we did the last two or weeks," Embiid told the press afterward. "Just trusted it. I mean, I told Tyrese after the game, I was like, ‘We’ve been going against these guys for the last couple years, and tonight felt a little different than the past.’ But, I mean, we're still far away from what we could be."
But that's just the thing: They know this is different, for Embiid especially, who has become all too familiar with heartbreak through the past decade, whether it's at the hands of New York, or Boston, or Toronto.
And the Sixers know, too, that Tuesday night was far from perfect.
But they're also just getting started, and maybe most important: when it mattered most, they held the line– and never seemed to flinch, either.
“I think we’re just figuring it out," Brown said. "We're not even at the tip of the iceberg in terms of hitting chemistry, understanding yourself on the floor, understanding our spacing. We’re still at the very early stages of what we could possibly be. So it's a good sign that we can win while still being at that early stage.”
*Adam Aaronson contributed to this story
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