February 19, 2026
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Tyrese Maxey has done a lot of flying over the last few weeks.
PHILADELPHIA – The sentiment was nearly unanimous across the Sixers' traveling party when the All-Star break hit: some time off would rejuvenate the group ahead of a pivotal 28-game stretch to end the season.
But on Thursday, the Sixers failed to execute well enough to beat a 26-30 Atlanta Hawks team, falling 117-107 despite playing with much better effort than they showed in their two losses before the break. VJ Edgecombe enjoyed an early heater and Tyrese Maxey found a semblance of a rhythm in the second half, but the Sixers spent most of the game trailing. When their offense got hot, their defense cratered; when they buckled down defensively, they failed to capitalize with consistent offensive juice.
The Sixers trailed by as many as 14 points in the final frame before staging a valiant comeback effort. They went small, with Kelly Oubre Jr. playing power forward alongside three guards, and it gave them the offensive punch they badly needed. But it was too little, too late for a team that did not play well enough for most of the game.
Certainly, the absence of Joel Embiid was felt; Embiid was in street clothes watching the game because the knee issue impacting him before the break has since morphed into a shin issue. Of course, the Sixers were also without Paul George, as they will continue to be for another five weeks. The primary pitfall of building a team around two injury prone players with massive salaries: it is awfully difficult to build a quality rotation when they are sidelined.
Takeaways from the Sixers' third straight uninspiring loss:
During the Sixers' first-round playoff series against the New York Knicks two seasons ago, head coach Nick Nurse made a comment about how, no matter what happened, every game felt like it was going down to the buzzer:
nick nurse, asked about themes of the series: “i’ve decided nothing matters. they kill us on the glass, it goes down to the buzzer. we kill them on the glass, it goes down to the buzzer. joel scores 50, it goes down to the buzzer. brunson scores 47, it goes down to the buzzer.” pic.twitter.com/x6ytFMo6zD
— James Herbert (@outsidethenba) May 2, 2024
Truthfully, those words have applied to the 2025-26 Sixers all season long. The Sixers are very rarely on either side of a blowout. They have often played up to superior competition to keep games close, but have not done nearly a good enough job putting away inferior teams. With Embiid and George sidelined, these teams were about an even match, which made it feel even more likely that the game would hang in the balance during its final minutes.
Naturally, that is exactly what happened. The Sixers played a lackluster opening three quarters, but a few particularly strong bursts and shaky three-point shooting from Atlanta ensured the Hawks could not pull away.
The Sixers finally found themselves offensively in the third quarter, with Maxey's emergence leading them in that effort. But their defensive execution tailed off; Nurse highlighted transition defense as an area where the team needed to improve and the Hawks pummeled them with baskets in the open floor all night. First-time All-Star Jalen Johnson, a point forward of sorts who has given the Sixers plenty of trouble this season, continued to have his way driving and facilitating.
When the Sixers went down by 14 points, it felt as if the Hawks were going to prevent the game from reaching a critical crossroads at the end. But in the blink of an eye, the Sixers had trimmed that margin to four points with a spirited push powered by their small-ball look. But four points was the closest the Sixers got, as the Hawks were able to put the game away thanks to what proved to be just a significant enough margin for error.
Nurse hinted before Thursday's game that Cam Payne, just two days after arriving in Philadelphia from Serbia, was going to see the floor against the Hawks. Asked if he anticipated using Payne in his rotation, Nurse said "Yep, I do. Not saying I'm going to, but anticipating it, yes."
After a first quarter headlined by Edgecombe's excellence and Maxey's struggles, Payne entered the game ready to lead a second-unit lineup. Edgecombe was the only starter on the floor; he shared the backcourt with Payne and Quentin Grimes, playing in front of Trendon Watford and Adem Bona. Andre Drummond replaced Bona a few minutes later – the youngster's opening stint was very good, with off-the-charts energy – and then Kelly Oubre Jr. replaced Watford to turn the unit into a very small and very fast one. Payne shared the floor with Maxey for all of 19 seconds before checking out with five minutes and 22 seconds under his belt.
During his first stint with the Sixers, Nurse often referred to Payne as a "creator of offense," because he was not singularly focused on individual scoring or playmaking. But in Payne's first burst of minutes on Thursday, it was all about facilitating and getting others involved. Payne collected four assists before he had even logged four minutes, and it was abundantly clear that he had a solid command of the offensive operation here despite just landing in Philadelphia.
Payne's second-half stint represented his first high-leverage minutes of the season. Maxey had just scored 11 points in the third quarter, and the Sixers were down by four points entering that final frame in need of a non-Maxey lineup to keep them afloat. Once again, Payne was tasked with opening a quarter playing alongside Edgecombe, Grimes, Watford and Bona. The Sixers lost Payne's four fourth-quarter minutes by four points, though it would be hard to blame Payne for that.
Payne's familiarity with Nurse and the coaching staff certainly helps his acclimation process, but as a few of his teammates have pointed out in the days since his signing, the 31-year-old is a steady hand to help orchestrate an offense. Payne plays with enormous amounts of energy, but typically plays with the right amount of aggression. He pushes the pace and, when needed, changes the pace. It is far from ideal that Payne is the highest-profile player the Sixers will add midseason, but he does bring a very helpful set of skills to the table, particularly as the team aims to do a better job of managing the enormous workloads of its two starting guards.
A pair of additional notes:
• Nurse fielded a few Embiid-centric questions before the game. Among the notable responses: Nurse said Embiid's knee recovered after it caused him to miss the last two games before the All-Star break (his newfound shin issue was the lone cause of Thursday's absence), that he is very optimistic Embiid will not miss much time, and that if he had to guess, Embiid would have played in this game had it been a playoff matchup.
• Nurse also raved about Jabari Walker, officially part of the team's standard roster as of Thursday morning. Walker was the only member of the Sixers available for each of the team's first 50 games, then had to sit for four games because that was the extent of his two-way availability.
Walker is now on a standard contract, and Nurse said he could very much feel Walker's absence during the last four games before the break, saying the team needs every bit of effort and physicality it gets from Walker and Dominick Barlow, whose promotion from two-way contract to standard deal came two weeks earlier. Walker indeed rejoined the rotation, checking into the game after about eight minutes. His energy was palpable and he produced one of the best sequences of the game:
.@JabariWalker with the 👌@adembona with the ❗️ pic.twitter.com/1Ghmy0kXQs
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) February 20, 2026
Up next: The Sixers will soon depart for a back-to-back on the road, with a matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans on tap Saturday evening.
