Six Thoughts: Paul George Dominates Fourth Quarter to Secure Important Win Over Magic

Tyrese Maxey scored 14 of his 29 points in the third quarter. Paul George dominated the fourth quarter to deliver the Sixers a comfortable win. Joel Embiid went for 22 points and nine rebounds. The Sixers went into Orlando and earned a comfortable win over the Magic to take a critical regular-season tiebreaker over a team they're fighting for seeding in the East playoff race.

Here are six thoughts on the game.

Jabari Walker brings some juice

The story of the first half was going to be whether the Sixers' horrendous shooting would allow Orlando to pull away with this game before intermission. No qualms with Philadelphia's process in the first 24 minutes, they just could not make shots to save their lives. Nonetheless, they were fighting a multi-possession deficit basically the entire.

Enter the uncommonly used Walker. The Sixers outscored the Magic by seven in his 6:46 ofaction in the second quarter, and he made two plays in a row that brought some rhythm to Philadelphia's offense.

Walker doesn't have the most athletic pop, which makes it a little surprising that he consistently puts up a good fight in traffic at the rim. Early in his stint, Walker attacked the baseline on a corner kickout pass from Maxey and bullied his way to the rim for two free throws. Shortly thereafter, he attacked a heavy closeout on the baseline and fed Andre Drummond the bounce pass for a dunk once the helper slid to the block to help cut off the drive.

It doesn't sound like much, but four easy points at a time when the team was shooting below 35 percent from the field stacks good possessions and creates a bit of a wave.

Prison rules

Official Bill Kennedy appeared to suffer an injury that was severe enough to force a timeout and require him to leave the court via wheel chair late in the first quarter.

Here is the play where Bill Kennedy appeared to hurt his leg —

Prayers up. 🙏

(h/t @BrickCenter_)

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— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) January 10, 2026

Now obviously we wish the best for Kennedy, whose narration of challenge rulings is the most enjoyable thing any referee in this league does. But the game continued with just two referees.

It was already a poorly officiated affair to begin with, the judges calling Embiid for a goaltend that was a clean block, missing a goaltend that should've given Embiid two points and not calling a foul when VJ Edgecombe got poked in the eye with the ball in his hands. It wasn't going to get better with one less set of eyes.

The Sixers did not use that to their advantage. The game was effectively reduced to prison ball, fouls being missed all over the place. The Magic certainly played that way and got away with it, and the Sixers did not match the physicality and challenge the officials to make calls.

The physicality mismatch rules the first half

Not only did the Sixers not play a physical brand of basketball to try to win the officiating battle, but they also just did not treat a big Magic team with the physicality they require. Orlando beat them to rebounds repeatedly. The Sixers, even when they came down with the miss, coughed it up because they weren't prepared for the Magic to pursue steals.

More than that, Philadelphia wasn't particularly aggressive in trying to stay in front of movement around the floor. The Sixers didn't fight off cutters and let the Magic slip behind them to the rim often. They weren't connected on screens, either, allowing the likes of Paolo Banchero to muscle his way into the mid-range for pull-up jumpers.

Embiid is playing a different brand of basketball

If you want a reason to believe that things can be different this season as the Sixers push to a season-best six games above .500, I'd invite you to study the way Embiid is playing. His catch points are the same. A lot of the offense still runs through him. But he's setting some monster picks to free his teammates. More than that, he's maintaining his touches and still not doing the lion's share of the scoring. Maxey was the leading scorer in this game, and he's the leading scorer on most nights. Embiid is still getting his, but his output is far more balanced with that of his teammates than it was during his MVP candidacy.

Embiid is making a real effort to treat the elbows, nail and post as his domain to set up teammates more than to shoot. There were a handful of examples of him leveraging the danger he presents in those areas to bring Orlando out of the paint and open up cutting opportunities for Dominick Barlow and others.

Additionally, Embiid is playing off the move more frequently. His passes sometimes miss the mark, but the idea is there. He's demonstrating that his vision is better than advertised. But he's also serving as a connector in the middle of the paint.

The other thing Embiid is doing is backing opponents down in the paint and raising his shot quality. He's starting post-ups higher on the court and using his lower body to forge a path to the rim for layups.

That is the style of basketball that didn't develop in his 20s. He always thought jumper first and drive second. Now he's thinking about setting the table and using force to get higher-quality looks. Is it a guarantee that it translates to the postseason? No. Does it expose him to the same risk that his traditional style of play did? No.

The Sixers win the third quarter thanks to Maxey

The star guard had a very rough first half, but stayed aggressive. He didn't let it breed deference in his approach, and Maxey came out of halftime with fire. If I'm an opposing coach, I'm dreading the transition pull-up three from him because that's usually a sign that he's feeling it. Maxey drilled one of those early in the third to expand Philadelphia's lead. Maxey is at his best as a scorer when the ball comes off his hands softly, and he found the arc and touch to get the friendly bounces in the third quarter.

As he found his touch, Maxey started dancing with the ball. There's good and bad in that. He was doing it to get his man off balance and create lanes to get to his floater or deeper into the paint for scores at the rim. Eventually he was kissing the ball high off the glass for layups at difficult angles after changing speeds and directions to get himself into that range of the rim.

14 points in the third quarter. Superstar stuff.

George puts his foot down

With Embiid and Maxey on the bench to open the fourth quarter, George immediately decided that it was his time. He didn't hit a three all night, but he tortured the Magic as a driver in the game's final quarter. That may be the best sign of how George feels physically. This would profile as a matchup that could disturb his rhythm, but George consistently and cleanly shed his defender and burst through driving lanes to get to the hoop.

One of the things that should make any Sixers fan think about whether they take him for granted is that George does not press. He's not letting his contract eat at his shot selection. He's not using his resume as a permit to commandeer the offense. George is making reads, picking his spots and empowering teammates. After his barage of scores early in the fourth, the Sixers ran a set play that got George the ball coming off a screen, only for him to make the pocket pass to Andre Drummond for a score at the rim. That was a possession that was minutes in the making, George going scorched earth to force the Magic to show him extra attention and then punishing them for it.

He put the game firmly in the Sixers' hands by the time Embiid and Maxey returned, and the Sixers never looked back.