If Only for One Night, the Sixers United Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA — Tyrese Maxey broke character as he walked away from the podium late Thursday night.

He had been asked whether his orange-and-black striped shirt was an homage to the Flyers, who had sent their chapter of the Philadelphia faithful home grinning just 24 hours earlier with a thrilling overtime victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins to win their playoff series at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

The stone-faced guard smiled and claimed it was inadvertent, and that he realized he was wearing Flyers colors as he walked into work earlier in the evening.

"Shout out to the Flyers," Maxey said.

Maxey's face behind the microphone was not one of jubilance. His expression was what you'd expect of a lead guard whose team was down in the series, three games to one.

Perhaps it was nothing, just a guy doing another media availability late at night after a hard-fought win.

Or perhaps it was because there was nothing to be happy about yet.

The job isn't finished.

"We're not done yet. We got to keep playing the same way every single night and getting better and better, like, progressively getting better every day and staying together," Maxey told reporters after Game 6.

"That's the biggest thing we got to do. Stay together, stay the course and we got to keep stepping in the right direction as a group."

He's right. The Sixers aren't done yet. They've done enough work to equalize this series, sending it back to Boston one more time for a decisive Game 7.

But make no mistake about it: This is probably the most impressive display of playoff resilience the Sixers have put forth in the Joel Embiid era.

It is equal parts a good story and an indictment of what this window of Sixers history has been.

Their season on the brink with a home annihilation at the hands of their green rivals on Sunday, the Sixers have scratched and clawed to nullify a 3-1 series deficit.

It is now anyone's series.

What did it take?

The most complete three quarters of basketball the Sixers have played all season.

It was cathartic for the locals, who spent the majority of the second half of Game 6 chanting "WE WANT BOSTON" and "TRUST THE PROCESS" in near unison around Xfinity Mobile Arena.

The Sixers have done plenty of damage to the idea that anyone around these parts could trust the process.

But on Thursday, it was everything everyone had once dreamed this era of Sixers basketball could be.

It started with Embiid.

He exorcised his own demons. It was not his most sterling scoring game by any stretch. But it was the trust he put in his teammates that made Embiid such an effective hub of the offense.

It wasn't just the cohesion of his two-man with Maxey. It was the eyes he had for cutting teammates.

Just three of Embiid's eight assists went to his trusted co-star. He patiently anticipated where teammates would be when he got the ball in his sweet spots, waiting for their defenders to over-play high or show late double-teams on him before threading passes to the open man at the rim.

"I think Jo's a good passer and I think that it's up to us as a staff and up to the guys on the floor to get in areas where he can hit when he's getting double-teamed," Nick Nurse told reporters after Thursday's victory.

"These guys, for not having a ton of games, I'd give them an above-average grade on that for the amount of reps they got."

It was a poetic display of offensive diversity from the former MVP, all of his skills coalescing to quarterback the offense beautifully against a team that has dealt Embiid so much pain over the years.

The Sixers led by nine at halftime.

The game truly swung early in the third quarter.

Jaylen Brown was whistled for his fourth foul 31 seconds into the second half.

"He did a DHO. Those are tricky, when you're heading downhill pretty fast and guys are jumping in there and switching and stuff," Nurse said.

Brown's use of his left arm to create space has been a topic of conversation throughout this series. He's gotten away with some offensive fouls shoving defenders away with his off arm. Others have been called.

But on this night, with four infractions just after halftime, Brown could not risk using his trusty move to create separation.

He could not get comfortable. Brown had to shoot straight up over defenders, attack without picking up his dribble short of the rim and create space by retreating into fadeaways off the dribble.

One half of Boston's two-headed shot-creation monster was rendered unaggressive and ineffective.

"Listen, it's tough, man, when you get in foul trouble. We went through it in the first game. It just totally screwed up our whole rotations and everything, Game 1. So I'm sure it was tough for them," Nurse said.

From there it was practically all Sixers for the rest of the night.

The third quarter has been a boogeyman for Philadelphia all season long. If they were just an average team in that random middle quarter instead of a historically bad one, they would not be the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Paul George ensured that the Sixers' scoreboard kept moving.

He scored 10 of his 23 points in the third.

He walked into a pair of right-wing 3s, punishing Boston's transition defense for not tracking him well. He laced a pair of jumpers off the dribble from the left baseline to beat mismatched defenders in isolation.

"Once [George] came back from his 25 games, he had a mission and I think he's accomplishing that mission. He's been really good. We appreciate him and we appreciate his sacrifice. But he's done a great job," Maxey said after Game 6.

George has not put up the apex scoring numbers he did when he was a young wing in Indiana, an MVP candidate in Oklahoma City and half the foundation in Los Angeles.

But he has redeemed a miserable first season in Philadelphia with what he's been able to do this season and series.

Nurse has raved about his defense. George's shot-creation and dead-eye shooting have been critical to keeping Philadelphia's offense oiled.

"It came down to now me being able to, like, off days, spend extra minutes putting up shots and working on my game and my craft. Before the suspension, I was kind of saving myself for games because of the soreness and I wanted to be as fresh as possible going into the games. Any little thing I felt was extra outside of practice would've carried over into a game where I'm not feeling my best. So it was a ton of rehab that was involved with that," George said of what it's taken to build up to this moment in his Sixers tenure.

Now he can just focus on basketball. He's rediscovered his love for the game.

"I'm finally enjoying it now that I'm able to do things that I was once able to do again. It's fun for me again. To be honest, it's kind of just like I'm seeing who I am again," he said.

"How can I be relevant again? How can I chase some of the things I was doing in my past? So it's been fun to be on the floor and just experience and kind of just learn new things about myself."

So now, all is equal.

Most of the adjustments have been made. The only thing left to do is square up for one more tip-off.

"Sometimes it's not about the Xs and Os. It's about the Jims and the Joes. Who you have on your team. Our Jims and Joes got to be better than theirs. It's going to be a dog fight. It's going to be extremely difficult," Maxey said.

"Every single second will be a roller coaster ride. Us, as a group, we just got to stay connected. Stay with one goal in mind. That's to try to win the game."

George wants his team to pour its heart and soul into it. Have no regrets.

"Put everything into it. Yeah, in my Game 7 experiences, we were together, we were connected, we knew what the mission was. We didn't waver from it. We knew we had to come in and play our hardest. Leave it out there. It's as simple as that," George said.

"They're going to do the same thing. They're going to approach it the same way. But for us, in that environment, we're all we got. We got to stay together. Again, it just comes down to leaving it all out there, 48 minutes, give it our best shot. Just play as hard as we can."

The Sixers were as locked in on Thursday as they've been at any point this season.

They need to do it for one more game to earn a fresh slate.

"This is when we really got to lock in. The attention to details has to be there. The focus has to be there. Just take care of the ball. Value those possessions."

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