After 53 stressful minutes, the Sixers can breathe a sigh of relief. Their losing streak is over following an overtime win over the Grizzlies in Memphis on Tuesday night, with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Adem Bona all chipping in to get the job done. Embiid and Maxey dominated much of the game, but the night will be remembered because of Edgecombe, who notched the second game-winner of his young NBA career:

Despite now having an ankle issue in addition to problems with both knees, Embiid was actually moving better than he has in at least the vast majority of his appearances this season and obliterated his previous season-high in playing time, logging 38 minutes. Maxey began with one of the best halves of his NBA career and ended up scoring 34 points to pace the Sixers, with Maxey and Embiid thriving out of two-way actions as the Sixers finally leaned into their bread and butter. The two of them led the way for the Sixers all night long, with rookie VJ Edgecombe dragging.

Takeaways from a much-needed 139-136 Sixers win that was far too stressful, but pretty exciting right at the end:

Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey find their two-man stride 

For years, Embiid and Maxey have tortured opposing defenses with their work in two-man actions. Embiid's ability to score on the roll or pop in combination with Maxey's blend of pull-up shooting and downhill speed makes for an impossible equation for any pair of defenders, making their work together as reliable of a source of offense as any in the NBA in recent seasons.

On a few occasions this season, Embiid has acknowledged that the Sixers could probably lean into that dominance more, but that he would prefer to win with a more balanced, team-oriented offensive approach. He has always made sure to acknowledge that, if he has to, he will embrace the extreme lengths he and Maxey can go to as a tandem – and it does not exclusively benefit those players.

Perhaps Embiid, Maxey and Sixers head coach Nick Nurse felt the time had arrived, because the Sixers were increasingly aggressive going to Embiid-Maxey actions as this game went on. Against a Memphis team that was depleted but still had a strong group of defensive players, the Sixers found tremendous offensive success for much of the game with their two best players in the middle of everything they ran offensively.

The results could not have been more encouraging offensively, even if few other Sixers were able to make meaningful offensive contributions (that was more a product of their own down nights than anything Embiid and Maxey were doing to prevent a cohesive effort). Embiid even finally got back to the between-the-legs pass to a moving Maxey that he loves: 

The remaining Sixers did not play as well as they should – and can – surrounding the dual brilliance of their two best players. But if Embiid and Maxey can routinely find the sort of offensive flow they did on Tuesday, all of the pieces will fall into place much more easily on the offensive end. All of this made it incredibly puzzling to see the Sixers rarely tap into those two-man actions in the most pivotal moments of the game. Luckily for those two, Edgecombe had it covered.

Quentin Grimes has a much-needed resurgence

About five weeks into the season, Quentin Grimes looked like a high-level candidate to win the Sixth Man of the Year Award. But his December has been nightmarish. Grimes entered Tuesday's game shooting 35.4 percent from the field this month; a 7-for-9 performance in Milwaukee was the only time Grimes has even made 40 percent of his field goal attempts.

The most puzzling decision in the Sixers' loss in Chicago on Friday night was Grimes closing over Dominick Barlow amid another rough game, and despite a decent start in Oklahoma City on Sunday, he ended up shooting 3-for-10 from the field, with just one shot (a miss) being from two-point range.

Grimes made his first shot on Tuesday night, and after a slow first half afterwards he found himself in a stellar second half. Grimes' defense, which has remained very good no matter what his offensive output has looked like this season, was helpful after intermission, and he finally found some scoring juice, first scoring off his own steal, then knocking down a mid-range jumper and following it up with a triple.

Earlier this month, Nurse identified two things he wanted to see Grimes do to get back on track as a scorer.

"I want him to drive the ball more," Nurse said. "Because to me – I know this doesn't sound that fundamental – he can just drive and take off, and figure it out from there... He's a really good finisher, switching hands, he's so athletic, he's powerful. I want him to drive the ball and be more aggressive, and I've just got to make sure I get him set up to do that some more."

Grimes' flaws as an on-ball player are fairly evident, even if he has some real juice with the ball in his hands. His recent struggles from beyond the arc have been a bit more confusing.

"He's a good three-point shooter, right? But he's kind of an interesting one," Nurse said. "I think he's one of those guys that makes a lot of those look-you-in-the-eye ones when he's covered. You've got to just keep encouraging him, 'Find yourself. Shake him down and shoot.' And I think he didn't feel great about that tonight, I thought he was a little hesitant and I thought he had some chances to do some of that. But we'll get him going. I mean, I think it's obviously a long season, this kind of stuff's going to happen."

Grimes' final line on Tuesday: 11 points on 4-for-9 shooting from the field, with three steals in 37 minutes. His plus/minus was +18, easily a team-high. The Sixers badly need him to get right, particularly because Jared McCain is experiencing even more pronounced struggles right now.

Odds and ends

Some additional notes:

• As was predicted in this week's 5 Sixers thoughts, Adem Bona replaced Andre Drummond as Embiid's primary backup on Tuesday. Bona's minutes have been better than those of the veteran Drummond for about two weeks. Nurse could end up toggling between those two options depending on matchup, with Bona being the superior option in matchups requiring defensive mobility and Drummond being more valuable against bruising frontcourts, but both players remain vital for the Sixers given how often Embiid misses time.

Bona and Embiid shared the floor for the final two minutes and 40 seconds of the first half as well; Embiid was not overjoyed about their first extended minutes together last week but they gave the Sixers a great lift prior to intermission, and then again for nearly the entirety of the second half. Bona's energy was infectious and the entire operation looked much smoother on offense, where there can be spacing issues.

• Embiid's season-best passing performance was not exclusively because of Maxey; the former NBA MVP also showed off his developing rapport with Dominick Barlow, who continually found ways to make himself available with timely cuts when Embiid had the ball with multiple defenders on him.

• Edgecombe only played 12 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, but when he did play his defense was outstanding. Even before his game-winner, he knocked down a flurry of triples in the fourth quarter to continue his trend of clutch shot-making:

• It is nearly impossible to be better than Maxey was in the first half of this game. He scored 24 points on 9-for-10 shooting from the field and 4-for-5 from three-point range; his lone miss was a difficult triple at the end of the first quarter. That did not stop him from capping off the second quarter with this remarkable shot:

Up next: The Sixers' five-game road trip will continue on Thursday night when they once again battle the Mavericks, this time in a homecoming of sorts for Maxey, whose hometown of Garland, Texas is about 20 miles away from Dallas. Then they will head back to the East Coast and finish off their trip at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks.