The Sixers started 2025 with the most dreadful back-to-back days imaginable, collapsing in the fourth quarter against the Sacramento Kings on Jan. 1 and following it up the next night by getting blown out by the Golden State Warriors in a 34-point loss. It is safe to say their beginning to 2026 has already been better.

On Thursday night in Dallas, the Sixers beat the Mavericks for the second time in two weeks. They are 18-14, thanks to the best combined performance they have ever received from their high-priced trio of Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and Paul George. All three All-Stars looked in tune with each other, and VJ Edgecombe once again provided strong boosts on both ends of the floor. The Sixers shook off their third consecutive horrid defensive start, hitting their stride on that end of the floor in a major way for the remainder of the night. 

All three of Maxey, Embiid and George had experienced strong individual performances before – and they might even have posted higher scoring totals as a trio in other games – but never have they looked more like a cohesive group than they did in this one. That is arguably more important than any individual win or loss on its own, in part because if those three players are routinely taking the right shots, the Sixers are typically going to come out on top.

Takeaways from the Sixers' 123-108 victory, their second win in a row to bounce back from a pair of losses that kicked off their road trip.

The Sixers' star trio is finding a groove

Maxey, Embiid and George had not all participated in a Sixers win this season before Tuesday, but it has been clear lately that the team's three players on max contracts are figuring out how to assert themselves while accentuating their key teammates' skills at the same time.

For three players who are terrific fits on paper, far too often during their time as teammates Maxey, Embiid and George have appeared to merely be taking turns doing their own things. It rarely felt like all three could get going at once for that reason. They have been trending in a positive direction on that front in their last few games together, with the Sixers' strong start to Thursday's second quarter being the best example yet.

Maxey and Embiid have a lethal two-man game that carried them for much of their win over Memphis before Edgecombe's late-game heroics. They leaned into it again – though not quite as much – and it consistently netted quality looks, not exclusively for those two players but for others. However, any time Embiid or Maxey can get a stress-free shot attempt off, the Sixers will be pleased:

Meanwhile, George was focused on getting downhill instead of settling for contested mid-range jumpers, and almost all of his damage ended up coming in that frame. George's lack of shot attempts close to the rim this season has been quite troubling; a renewed focus on driving and putting defenders on their heels will not only generate a more efficient shot diet but also lead to a higher percentage of makes when he does pull up from 18 feet away.

With a spaced-out offense and Dallas worried about a Maxey drive, George ended up with a clear lane for his second dunk of the season, inciting another impassioned reaction from his bench:

This is far and away the longest stretch of 2025-26 in which each of those three players has been available, and perhaps they are finally starting to find the groove they expected would come. All along – not just this season, but last – Maxey, Embiid and George have claimed that they just needed a chance to build a rhythm with one another. There has perhaps been no buzzword used in the Sixers' locker room more since October of 2024 than "rhythm," including when George was asked about his hopes for this very trip on Dec. 23.

"We just – again – we've all just got to figure out how to find a rhythm playing off one another," George said. 

A salary bullet dodged

It is far from a given that Quentin Grimes will depart the Sixers via free agency when he becomes an unrestricted free agent after this season. Even if he does, the Sixers will have made out like bandits in their trade with Dallas last year which sent Caleb Martin and a 2030 second-round pick to the Mavericks in exchange for Grimes and the Sixers' 2025 second-rounder being returned to them.

That 2025 second-round pick ended up being No. 35 overall in the 2025 NBA Draft, and while the jury remains out on rookie Johni Broome, that turned out to be a much more valuable asset than anticipated. Grimes will, at the very least, give the Sixers over a year's worth of cost-effective production on both ends of the floor. Grimes was in the midst of a multi-week slump before making plenty of subtle but important plays to help get the Sixers across the finish line in Memphis.

On Thursday, Grimes' contributions were a bit less subtle because he made a bunch of shots – most of them timely – and was on the floor for much of the team's 41-27 second quarter and their leading scorer during a mature closing effort:

Particularly given Jared McCain's continued struggles, the Sixers need Grimes to be a reliable player in what Sixers head coach Nick Nurse calls "starter minutes," even if he is coming off the bench.

Even as Grimes turned the page on his worst month of play as a member of the Sixers, there was a reminder on the other end of the floor of just how prudent that trade was for the Sixers.

Martin, now 30 years old, was a -11 in the first half without even reaching four minutes played. He entered Tuesday's contest averaging 1.6 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game, shooting 35.4 percent from the field.

"He doesn’t really have a role on the team at all and is at best an end-of-bench guy, despite injuries plaguing the team," Mavericks writer Mette Robertson told PhillyVoice when asked about Martin last month. "He will be compared to Grimes all through his time here because of that trade, and that’s not really doing him any favors."

Worst of all, Martin is under contract for two more years after this one, set to make about $30 million combined during that span. It would be an absolutely brutal deal to have on the Sixers' current books as the team tries to minimize long-term risks of any size as they try to manage their top-heavy cap sheet.

Odds and ends

Some additional notes:

• Dominick Barlow picked up two early fouls, and he was replaced by fellow two-way power forward Jabari Walker, who for two games had fallen out of Nurse's rotation. Walker's playing time diminishing with Kelly Oubre Jr. and Trendon Watford nearing returns is not encouraging for his chances of being someone Nurse relies upon, but it is clear that Walker and Nurse have a mutual trust.

• Adem Bona has been better than Andre Drummond for a few weeks, and in Tuesday's win, it was the 22-year-old Bona serving as Embiid's backup in addition to, on three different occasions, his frontcourt partner. Bona totally shifted the energy of the game despite not registering any field goal attempts, yet on Thursday it was the struggling veteran Drummond back on the floor over Bona when Embiid got his first bit of rest. Bona ended up playing the final 84 seconds of the first half alongside Embiid, and in the second half it was the younger playing backup five.

• Ho hum, another strong two-way performance for the rookie Edgecombe. No matter how much momentum he is riding from the previous game, Edgecombe never presses and never forces the issue. That mentality is being rewarded: Edgecombe coasted to the ninth 20-plus-point game of his young NBA career by letting the game come to him. Making the right basketball play over and over and over is a tremendous skill. Edgecombe has it at 20 years old.

• It is safe to assume Maxey had many friends and family in attendance; Dallas is a short drive from his hometown of Garland, Texas. Maxey did not grow up a Mavericks fan – he rooted for the Miami Heat at first because of his favorite player, Dwyane Wade – but the Sixers' trip to Dallas is his annual homecoming game.

Up next: The Sixers' five-game road swing will come to a close on Saturday night when they face the New York Knicks in another rematch of a recent win. Their first trip to Madison Square Garden this season went quite well.