PHILADELPHIA — The Sixers played their third preseason game of 2025 on Friday night, but it was their first stateside exhibition.
After a pair of losses to the New York Knicks in Abu Dhabi last week, the Sixers returned home for a few practices before Friday night’s return to action, a home battle against the Orlando Magic.
While Orlando was without starting point guard Jalen Suggs, their new star trio of Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and Desmond Bane suited up alongside starting center Wendell Carter Jr., making a much more formidable unit on paper than the starting five sent out by Sixers head coach. With Joel Embiid, Paul George, Quentin Grimes, VJ Edgecombe, Trendon Watford, Jared McCain and Kyle Lowry inactive, the Sixers started Tyrese Maxey, Kelly Oubre Jr., Justin Edwards, Dominick Barlow and Adem Bona.
The Sixers’ undermanned group matched Orlando early, as a high-scoring matchup began with a 66-point opening frame. The scoring barrages continued on both sides, even as key players rested and deep reserves emerged, until the Magic pulled away with a 128-98 victory. A batch of takeaways and notes from the action:
Tyrese Maxey plays ‘free and easy’
If there was one noteworthy talking point from Nurse’s pregame press conference, it was the revamping of sorts that he is performing on his offense. Nurse expressed a strong desire for his team to play with a stronger emphasis on ball movement — and ensuing player movement — to involve more players and energize the group. It also diversifies the usage of various players.
Nurse spoke at length about Maxey in particular, saying that after the first quarter of an Abu Dhabi game, Maxey came to him and said he did not feel like he had the ball in his hands enough. Nurse, however, had been delighted with his offensive process, he told his star guard.
“I said, ‘That was about as free and easy as you’ve played offense that I can remember. You had great shots, you had some cuts for backdoors,'” Nurse said. “…’You [scored] without dribbling in circles for 20 seconds and trying to find something and running into brick walls, you were really just moving free and easy out there for your buckets. So hopefully that was a little bit of a sign of what you can do.'”
Nurse clarified that, of course, Maxey would still handle the ball quite a bit. But with Maxey’s elite speed and ridiculous movement shooting accuracy, weaponizing him as an off-ball player should be a must for Nurse — and the Sixers have more than enough ball-handling behind Maxey moving forward to get that done.
Maxey’s “free and easy” offense was very much on display early on Friday, as he torched Orlando to the tune of 17 points in the first quarter. He did it in all sorts of ways; three of his seven made shots came from beyond the arc with a mix of pull-up and spot-up triples.
Nurse said that he is currently overemphasizing the importance of ball and player movement, acknowledging that at times his team has been overdoing it on those fronts. He believes setting the tone now and then dialing things back when necessary is easier than trying to incorporate those principles once the season starts.
Sixers crash the glass with force
Within minutes of the game beginning, the Sixers’ primary focus in this game was clear: pummel Orlando on the offensive glass. With Barlow leading the way and Andre Drummond following suit, the Sixers did just that, grabbing five offensive rebounds in the first six minutes of the game and constantly generating extra shot attempts as a result. Nurse praised Barlow immediately after the team’s first official practice for his activity around the rim, and Barlow used his impressive combination of length and athleticism to score on offensive rebounds twice in a row early in the game.
“Dominick Barlow is standing out early on here,” Nurse said on Sep. 27. “He’s just really on the glass and making some shots and playing extremely hard. He was just involved in a lot of good stuff.”
At Media Day one day prior, Barlow demonstrated a good understanding of what he will be asked to do if he earns minutes amid the Sixers’ search for viable power forwards.
“Relentless energy,” Barlow said at Media Day. “Play the game really hard. Defend multiple positions. Worked a lot on shooting the basketball this summer. Do some things off the bounce, and just being a connector, playing that short-roll hub kind of position… Just understanding that and how I can help guys continue to do what they do.”
The Sixers’ guard-heavy roster is going to naturally lend itself to smaller lineups, which Nurse acknowledged after the team’s Thursday practice. But the one brief run of strong results from the team during 2024-25 came when he finally got to use some lineups with strong positional size across the board. Nurse clearly likes to impose a level of physicality on opponents when he can, and Thursday’s game was a clear example of that.
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Odds and ends
A pair of additional notes:
• Nurse’s first substitution of the game on the perimeter was undrafted rookie Hunter Sallis, inked to a two-way contract. Sallis had an up-and-down Summer League, where his scoring and shooting flashes were surprisingly limited but his improvement as a playmaker and defender were noticeable. Sallis converted an early and-one and showed some emotion after the fact.
The Sixers’ usage of their two-way players is already limited as it is for every team, but the Sixers only carrying 14 players on their standard roster will force them to be even more diligent about using their NBA days wisely. With Barlow standing out early and Jabari Walker also carrying over three years of NBA experience — and both of those players fitting potential needs — it will be a major uphill battle for Sallis to get onto an NBA floor with any sort of regularity this season. But signs of promise are encouraging.
• Justin Edwards spoke to the media after Friday morning’s shootaround and said that he felt his 1-for-15 shooting line across the two Abu Dhabi games was not reflective of the quality of his performance. He said he has gotten better at separating shooting results and overall process, and felt he was good in the latter even if the former was not where it needed to be. Hours later, Nurse spoke at length about simplifying Edwards’ role into a few key categories: defending, spot-up shooting, occasional attacking of closeouts and rebounding. The last one is where Edwards has been the most focused; the Sixers told him at his exit interview that it is an area in which he must improve.
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Interestingly, the most notable flashes from Edwards on Friday came as a passer. The Philadelphia native totaled three assists in the first quarter alone, adding another before intermission. One of his assists came on a dunk and two of them came on threes, but the most remarkable part is that one of those threes was a corner triple made by Drummond, who knocked down another corner three in the third quarter and added a bow-and-arrow celebration. It is a level of excitement that can only be reached in preseason action.
Up next: The Sixers will conclude their four-game preseason slate next Friday night when they host the Minnesota Timberwolves.
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