PHILADELPHIA – Sixers head coach Nick Nurse has made it known to his players for years: if their number gets called and they answer that call by playing their best, he will ride them for as long as he can.

Exhibit A: his "closing" lineup in Saturday's win over the Dallas Mavericks. Tyrese Maxey, Jared McCain, VJ Edgecombe, Jabari Walker and Adem Bona had never shared the floor together before the 1:11 mark of the third quarter on Saturday, with the Sixers trailing Dallas by four points near the end of another brutal third quarter. As soon as the final frame began, they turned it on.

"So we just rolled with it," Nurse said. "Fortunately, it worked out."

In this week's edition of Sunday stats, a breakdown of how that brand new lineup found a way to flip a game on its head:

+11

The point differential of the Sixers' closing unit in the final 13 minutes and 11 seconds of Saturday's game.

While Maxey and Edgecombe led the way for the Sixers with their excellent scoring effort on Saturday – not just in the final 13 minutes and change, but all night long – it was truly a collective effort to shake off a dreadful stretch out of halftime and just pummel Dallas until the clock struck three zeroes.

"To be honest with y'all," Edgecombe said, "we all just locked in. Regardless of fatigue or not, we all just locked in."

McCain expressed a similar sentiment.

"I think it was just energy," McCain said. "We have this youthful energy that we're able to lock in at a really good crunch-time game on the back-to-back."

With Quentin Grimes and Justin Edwards both working through slumps, Nurse did not have many options. But for the second night in a row, he closed a tightly-contested game with Maxey, McCain and Edgecombe all on the floor. Maxey and Edgecombe have been locked into those situations all season long, but McCain has not been. He is earning trust. 

+29

Jared McCain's plus/minus on Saturday, far and away a game-high.

"Tonight, he was huge," Nurse said of McCain. "He goes 3-for-11 [from the field], played awesome."

It may be hard to believe, but McCain's defense stood out all night long on Saturday. He has been a weak link on that end of the floor all season, but was legitimately helpful against Dallas. He nabbed three steals, two of which led directly to Sixers baskets:

"I think this has been a great learning lesson for me," McCain said. "Offensively, if stuff's not clicking – or we have guys that obviously can make a bunch of plays – how am I going to find my niche? How am I going to find it? How am I going to get minutes? I think on the defensive end, I can really figure it out. I feel like I'm a smart player and I know what's coming. I know I can help and help the roller. Anything defensively, I feel like I can figure it out. Just being more patient on the defensive end and knowing what's coming I think is going to help me on the long run for sure, especially [at] the end of the season."

And, despite his aforementioned 3-for-11 shooting line, for the second night in a row the shots McCain was taking felt like the ones he should be taking. The common sentiment from the visitor's locker room at Madison Square Garden on Friday night was that it was the most "Jared-like" performance in quite a while, and many of his shots on Saturday were similar.

"You never can judge it on how many makes or misses you have," McCain said. "You've just got to keep shooting. I took great shots and I can knock those down in the future."

Another positive step: McCain is no longer playing with any braces or splints on his shooting hand. Nurse sees something major on the horizon.

"Wait 'til he goes about 7-for-10 from three one of these nights," Nurse said. "Because that's coming, too."

MORE: Sixers-Mavericks instant observations

2-for-6

Cooper Flagg's shooting line in the fourth quarter of Saturday's game.

Dominick Barlow set a season-high in scoring in the first half on Saturday, scoring 16 quick points. Early on in the second half, he tied his career-high with 21 points. And yet it was another two-way power forward who played those final 13 minutes and change.

"Barlow had the game of the season going," Nurse said with a laugh. "And there a bunch of times where I was getting the stats at timeouts, I'm looking down saying 'I've got a guy that's got 21 over here.' But I just thought [Walker] was playing the defensive part well enough to keep us going, especially once we got a little bit of a lead."

That part Walker played was defending Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft whose unique blend of ball-handling, speed, size and strength makes him a difficult player to match up with defensively. Nurse liked Walker's physicality on Flagg, and it worked out quite well.

"I was able to be aggressive with Cooper because I knew Bona had me on the back end," Walker said. "...I just felt comfortable just pressing him up, not giving him anything, and then sending him to Bona down low."

Asked again about what it took to limit Flagg down the stretch, Walker provided a long response that credited Barlow.

"We got a great scouting report, we always get a great scouting report. I think Barlow just started off, honestly," Walker said. "Big credit to him. He had a great night tonight also, I want to show him some love with that. I think any one of us could have finished the game, and we both understand that about each other: some games it's going to be him, some games it's going to be. And [I was] just trying to feed off of the energy that he had tonight. And so I watched what Barlow did early on forcing him certain ways that we went over defensively and then I picked up and did the same thing and I just keep that energy."

24:46

Adem Bona's playing time on Saturday, a season-high.

Bona had a brutal first half against the Knicks on Friday in what was his first NBA game action in two full weeks. He shook it off, and has since played three tremendous halves of basketball. He helped swing the game at Madison Square Garden into a win with a long stretch of quality two-way play in the second half, then submitted two lengthy stints against Dallas, one in each half, giving the Sixers exactly what they needed. And it was the second night in a row that one of Bona's teammates described his presence as a shot-blocker making their life easier.

“It's really good to have your teammates trusting you and knowing you always have their back," Bona said. "And I know they always have my back in case I go for the block… It's just trust that we’ve built throughout the year.”

To this point, Bona's sophomore campaign in the NBA has been a disappointment. One of his mentors, Andre Drummond, has usurped him as the team's primary backup center. But on nights like Friday and Saturday, when Embiid had been ruled out hours or minutes before tip-off, the Sixers need both of those reserves to step up at the five. Drummond is the more stable option, but Bona possesses higher upside as a more versatile defensive option. Bona is not just a stellar shot-blocker, but also has the foot speed to switch on the perimeter.

McCain's favorite play of the game, it seemed: assisting Bona on a corner three early in the fourth quarter. It is the second made three-point shot of his NBA career:

Bona's stock is rising at a time when Embiid's availability is once again becoming a significant issue. That is exactly what the Sixers need.

MORE: Maxey's new signature skill, and welcome to the start of NBA trade season

64

The combined scoring totals of Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe on Saturday.

All of the filling of the gaps detailed above is wonderful, but none of it is ever enough without high-volume scorers leading the way. Once again, the Sixers' remarkable backcourt pairing of Maxey and Edgecombe did most of the heavy lifting on that front. It started with Edgecombe, who scored 14 points in the first quarter alone, including this stretch of nine points on three possessions in 45 seconds. He can take over games:

From then on, it was Maxey who led the way with a terrific blend of on-ball and off-ball scoring, doing it at all three levels. Maxey's brilliance is so consistent that it has almost become boring; the fact that he scored 38 points the night after scoring 30 points did not even feel like a story. But Maxey was absolutely stellar yet again:

As Barlow said after the game, though, Maxey needs some help. While Barlow's 21 points provided a significant lift, so did Edgecombe's 26 points. The rookie has scored at least 22 points four times in a row after a 17-game stretch of never surpassing 21 points:

Night after night, Maxey and Edgecombe team up to pull off tremendous feats. Where does Edgecombe see this duo going? He paused and smiled.

"One of the greatest ever."

MORE: When 'the lights came on,' VJ Edgecombe met another moment