PHILADELPHIA – If the Sixers want to make any sort of noise in their first-round series with the Boston Celtics, beginning on Sunday afternoon, Tyrese Maxey will not be able to do it alone.

For the foreseeable future, Maxey is the head of the snake; Joel Embiid remains without a timeline for a return to basketball activities after his emergency appendectomy last week. But Maxey, whose 11 fourth-quarter points helped the Sixers cross the finish line in Wednesday's Play-In Tournament win over the Orlando Magic, would not have been able to put the exclamation mark on that victory if not for the performances across his supporting cast.

Maxey spent three quarters searching for his best and could not quite find it. The Sixers still led for nearly the entire game, though, because of terrific attention to the details – something they have often lacked this season but will need in spades moving forward – and because of how many other players starred in their roles.

In this week's Friday film, examining the critical performances from Maxey's two primary running mates, VJ Edgecombe and Paul George, in the Sixers' playoff-clinching victory:

Edgecombe's "wild" postseason debut

Sixers head coach Nick Nurse gave a rather blunt assessment of 20-year-old VJ Edgecombe's early minutes in what was his NBA postseason debut.

"I thought it was a little wild for him," Nurse said. "I thought some of the things he did with the ball [were] a little wild."

Edgecombe burst into laughter when the comment was relayed to him a bit later. The 20-year-old admitted he probably began the game a bit too amped up. But anyone who has been around the rookie knew he was going to settle in just fine. Edgecombe, as he later spoke to when discussing defensive matchups with Orlando's imposing wings, is not fearful in any respect:

And, eventually, Edgecombe settled in just fine. He scored 19 points on 16 shots; a few of his baskets were highlight-worthy and one came in a critical situation when he mustered one of his best rim finishes of the season. But all year long, Edgecombe has proven he does not need to have the ball or score points to be impactful.

"He played great in other aspects," Nurse said. "He really impacted the game... It's really good for him to get that one under his belt."

If the Sixers were going to lose to Orlando, their shaky defensive rebounding seemed like a likely cause. Orlando is not just a bigger and stronger team than the Sixers, but their schemes involve heavy crashing on the offensive glass. Edgecombe, from the game's opening minutes to its final buzzer, clearly played with intent on the defensive glass. And so, in an extremely physical game with a lot of missed shots, nobody grabbed more rebounds than the 180-pound rookie.

"It was extremely [impressive], because they're a big team, their front three, and they crash everyone just about," Paul George said. "I think more than anything it's just the attention to detail. He knew that this is a heavy crash team. He knew that he needed to be there and have a presence from the guard position to come in and help us rebound. So more than anything, yeah, he got 11 rebounds, but I think [what was important was] just his attention to detail, that that's what we needed from him tonight. And he came in and he did that."

When the Magic had success against the Sixers in the regular season, a lot of it came from targeting Edgecombe and Maxey on switches against those imposing wings, Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Edgecombe was particularly exploitable in that area early in the season. But, as he said loud and clear, he is willing to fight. And this time around, both of the Sixers' guards stood their ground, helping in a team-wide effort which limited Banchero and Wagner to a combined 12-for-33 shooting line.

The most important defensive play of the game for the Sixers came in the fourth quarter after Maxey fell to the floor, converting a tough floater. Orlando recognized Maxey was behind the play and got the ball up the floor as quickly as possible. Edgecombe, in an emergency, had to switch onto the 250-pound Banchero, who was promptly fed the ball in an ideal position to score. The rookie ripped the ball right away from him, triggering a Sixers possession which ended in a Maxey triple.

Every possession matters now, and this was a hell of a possession for Edgecombe:

Now that his postseason debut is out of the way, Edgecombe will check off his playoff debut on Sunday afternoon in Boston, where he posted his historic 34-point regular-season debut back in October.

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George's calming presence

For the time being, when Maxey gets his rare and brief stints of rest, Edgecombe will be teaming with George, the nine-time All-Star who has sought to slow the game down for his rookie teammate, to keep the Sixers' offense afloat.

The Sixers were able to tread water just fine without Maxey on Wednesday despite George only ending up with a 6-for-16 shooting line. That happened in large part because of George's defensive masterclass and organizational skills on the offensive end. He is not a floor general like a traditional point guard might be, but George's teammates respond well to his instruction. He has been a calming presence over this team whenever he has been on the court.

"I thought he had a really good game, especially from that perspective," Nurse said. "And I thought he had a really good game of just enough, when we called his number, buckets to keep the scoreboard moving for us. We called a lot of plays just to get him the ball in space and see what he could do with it, conjure up a bucket for us, and he did a very good of hitting, I thought, some timely ones."

George, on a team mostly made up of players with no playoff experience, said he made a concerted effort to be more vocal.

"I just know when it comes to this part of the season, every possession matters," George said. "And so if we can just eliminate empty possessions or possessions that we could have been on top of – just trying to have that communication there early."

George had four early assists. As an individual defender and as a team defender, he was the Sixers' best player. He did not have an overly efficient night as a scorer, but his baskets were largely self-created. He looked like a consummate floor-raising wing. If he can start to display the shot-making which boosted his stock at the end of the regular season, he will raise this team's ceiling, too. But this blend of scoring, passing and defensive playmaking was very good:

George was absolutely everywhere defensively, racking up deflections and disruptions. But his most pronounced impact on the game was as a one-on-one defender against Banchero, who shot just 7-for-22 from the field. Most of his misses came against George, who, despite giving up quite a few pounds and plenty of youth to Orlando's star, was able to constantly stonewall drive attempts and force bad jumpers:

All night long, the Sixers got stellar defense from their wing tandem of George and Kelly Oubre Jr. – Oubre, who made five triples, played a great game defending Wagner by forcing him to drive to his left – against Orlando's two star wings.

"Kelly and I, we had to make it tough. We had to challenge them," George said. "We had to play physical with them. We had to get into their dribble. We had to crowd them. I thought it was just a no-back-down mentality. We're going to go at you. We're going to challenge you. Those two guys, they're really good players. Huge upside, huge potential, great future. But we had to challenge them tonight, and that was our job tonight, to challenge those two and make it as tough as possible. Somebody else was going to have to beat us."

Now, a test is coming against two superstar wings in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. George and Oubre, who relish the chance to defend alongside each other, have their work cut out for them.

"It's fun playing with Kelly," George said, "because Kelly has that dog in him, and he don't back down from nobody."

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