76ers

LeBron James scored 20 points, including a late tip-in, to help seal the Philadelphia 76ers’ 98-93 victory over the NBA champions New York Knicks on Friday.

The 76ers notched their second win of the young season over the Knicks after spoiling their championship banner-raising with a victory at Madison Square Garden on opening night.

The win had a double edge as Friday’s games marked the start of the fourth edition of the NBA Cup, the NBA in-season tournament won by the Knicks before they went on to beat the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals for their first championship since 1973.

Group-stage Cup games will be played throughout November, all counting in the regular-season standings. Quarterfinals will be played December 4-5 and semifinals December 8-9 before the final on December 11 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Tyrese Maxey scored 27 points to lead the Sixers, who took control early against the sloppy Knicks.

They led by 14 in the third quarter and weathered a late Knicks surge.

Jalen Brunson’s step-back three-pointer put New York up 90-89 with 1:32 remaining.

James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, answered with a basket that put Philadelphia back in front and pushed the lead to 96-91 with a tip-in off a Maxey miss with 11.9 seconds left.

LeBron’s ‘best game’

James, 41, added nine rebounds, eight assists, one steal and a vintage chase-down block in what 76ers coach Nick Nurse called his best game since joining as a free agent in July.

“I thought he was really good all the way through,” Nurse said. “When we got some downhill stuff, he used his size and knocked them around a little bit for some layups … kind of pushed and organised it.

“He’s been good, but that was his best game, for sure.”

Brunson led New York with 24 points, and Karl-Anthony Towns added 22 points and 12 rebounds for the Knicks, who fell to 2-4.

The Dallas Mavericks, fuelled by 35 points from Kyrie Irving and 33 from Cooper Flagg, rallied to hand the Houston Rockets their first defeat of the season, 116-111.

The Rockets had emerged from a back-and-forth first half with a 51-44 lead, pushing the advantage to as many as 11 before taking an eight-point lead into the final frame.

Irving’s three-pointer with 7:01 remaining put Dallas back in front, and they wouldn’t trail again, the Mavs finding an answer when Houston twice pulled level in the final stretch.

“It felt good,” Irving said. “We came in at halftime, we weren’t proud of our effort. We looked each other in the eye, and we were just like, we’ve got to do better.

“We didn’t bring it in the first half, but the second half we definitely brought it.”

Curry climbs scoring list

Golden State star Stephen Curry scored 31 points to lead the Warriors to a 112-95 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in a rollercoaster contest in San Francisco.

The Lakers outscored the Warriors 38-15 in the first quarter, the Warriors erasing the 23-point deficit by outscoring Los Angeles 38-15 in the second to knot it 53-53 at halftime.

Luka Doncic scored 37 points for the Lakers. The night’s abiding image was of him crashing to the floor as he was wrong-footed by Curry – who fired over him for a three-pointer.

Curry took his career points tally to 26,674, surpassing Dominique Wilkins (26,668) for 18th on the all-time scoring list.

In Miami, Giannis Antetokounmpo delivered a triple-double of 31 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists to propel the Heat to a 145-125 victory over the Indiana Pacers.

In Boston, the Celtics romped to a 125-111 victory over the Chicago Bulls. Payton Pritchard scored 30 points off the bench, and Jayson Tatum scored 26 for the Celtics, who led by as many as 32 points.

Orlando’s Desmond Bane scored 28 points, Franz Wagner added 26 and Wendell Carter chipped in 20 as the Magic fended off a late challenge to beat the Raptors 121-114 in Toronto.

The Magic drained 18 three-pointers and withstood a career-high 41-point performance from Toronto’s Scottie Barnes.

Detroit shook off a slow start to hand the winless Nets a fifth straight defeat in Brooklyn, where Cade Cunningham scored 20 points, and Ron Holland added 18 off the bench in a 110-94 Pistons victory.

PHILADELPHIA — Joel Embiid punished Milwaukee with a triple-double one night and wanted to go right at Detroit and try for another on the next one. So the amiable big man with a career list of injuries that would fit on a scroll or two made a good-natured plea with the media to try to convince the 76ers to let him play in back-to-back games.

“Can you guys put pressure on them?” Embiid said with a laugh. “I want to play tomorrow, so start writing articles and put pressure on them so they’ll let me play.”

Not even the power of the pen can aid Embiid in playing consecutive games.

The 76ers smartly rested their All-Star center — no one game in October in the NBA is worth the potential of long-term harm — and then they went out and got smoked Sunday night by the Detroit Pistons.

LeBron James is in Philadelphia, and that’s a good thing. Jaylen Brown has an NBA Finals MVP on his resume and is serving up one-liners about lamb and gravy in his rivalry with a former Boston teammate.

No matter the star power added to the roster, the natural growth of homegrown talent such as Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, the 76ers have always since his 2016 debut — and will always — win as much and go as far in the postseason as Embiid will take them.

The 76ers were outrebounded 54-37 and trailed by 21 points in their first loss of the season to the Pistons. The Pistons pounded the inside and scored 24 second-chance points. They got the kind of looks that only get tougher to attempt when Embiid is in the lineup.

So yes, with the 76ers already thin in frontcourt depth, it was up to James to man a bulk of the minutes at center. The 41-year-old James won the opening tip for the 76ers.

The Pistons won everything else.

“We’re going to have those moments where we have different lineups out there throughout the course of the season,” James said. “I think the more minutes we get, the more games that we get under our belt, the more time we get, we’ll know what works well for us.”

James scored 18 points, grabbed two rebounds and was a minus-22 going up against Paul Reed, and the 76ers were left to hope his presence at center was nothing more than a cameo.

The 76ers were a whopping plus-49 with Embiid on the court over the first three games and minus-25 with him off it.

“I mean [heck], we’ve got an MVP over there,” James said as he looked in the direction of Embiid’s locker.

“I’m not here to have a sustainable role at the five. We’ve got Joel Embiid at the five. I don’t see it being a sustainable role but it’s a role that we know we can tap into if we needed. But sustainable playing the five? If I was to say I was signing here to have a sustainable role at the five, I don’t think none of us would actually want that.”

The 76ers also played without big men Dominck Barlow (back), Jabari Walker (knee) and 7-foot-6 center Tacko Fall. Fall has yet to play this season with a left quadriceps strain.

“We’ve got a 7-7 guy over there who hasn’t played. That would help,” James quipped.

Even with Embiid and his 11 boards in the lineup against the Bucks, the 76ers were still outrebounded 62-39.

Maxey, a first-time All-Star starter last season, had a suggestion to fix the rebounding woes.

“Some of our tall guys could come back,” Maxey said with a smile. “That would be great. We’ve just got to hit, box out, try to fight. We’ve got to figure it out.”

James took inspiration from Detroit’s bench, where Taurean Prince sat and watched the game. Prince didn’t play but he is responsible for one of the great viral interview moments in NCAA tournament history when he deadpanned the definition of a rebound after his Baylor team was outrebound by Yale.

“In the great words of Taurean Prince, who I saw tonight on the bench,” James said, “a good friend of mine, so, the ball goes up into the air. You go grab the ball. That’s what we’ve got to do, man. They got more of those than we did.”

So the 76ers do what they do so many times when Embiid doesn’t play and took the loss.

Let him sit. One game won’t hurt. It’s when those absences start stacking up that always doom the 76ers.

Even if one of the greats can take his place.

Gelston writes for the Associated Press.

The New York Knicks celebrated their NBA championship Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, yet hardly anything went according to plan. And LeBron James found himself smack dab in the swirl of the fierce and funny festivities.

James made his Philadelphia 76ers debut memorable, helping his new team defeat the Knicks, 106-100. Asked by NBC sideline reporter Zora Stephenson if he was enjoying spoiling the Knicks’ ring night, James grinned and said, “Yeah, I do. It’s pretty special.”

Last seen in Los Angeles bidding a hasty farewell after eight seasons with the Lakers — Times columnist Bill Plaschke wrote that “He left before the door could hit him in the butt” — James, 41, began his 24th NBA season by contributing 14 points, nine rebounds and seven assists in the 76ers’ victory.

LeBron James of the 76ers exchanges words with fans during a regular-season opener against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

(Sarah Stier / Getty Images)

And James did so even while jawing with courtside Knicks fans about using a helicopter to commute from his new home in New York to Philadelphia. Of course, famed director and Knicks fan fixture Spike Lee couldn’t stay out of it.

“Hey, LeBron, just because you have a helicopter and you live in New York doesn’t mean we’re gonna cheer for you,” one fan yelled, according to NBC broadcaster Mike Tirico. Another fan dinged James for being soft simply because he lived in L.A. for so long.

James couldn’t let that one go, yelling back, “Ain’t nothing soft in the Midwest. I don’t know what the f—- you talking about. I’m not from the West Coast, I’m from Ohio, baby.”

Lee, resplendent in a bright orange and blue pinstriped suit with matching hat, stood from his front-row seat, seemingly serving as conciliator. Much of the exchange was caught on camera by NBC, with Tirico and fellow broadcaster Reggie Miller providing commentary.

“[James] said hello to somebody over here,” Tirico said. “Spike Lee is over for a look and a chat. … LeBron is taking the helicopter rides back and forth from Philadelphia to New York and engaged here in some front-row convo.”

Miller chimed in, “That’s the last thing you wanna do is get LeBron going here in this building…. And guess who’s playing peacemaker? Spike Lee! He’s over here playing peacemaker. Boy, I have seen everything.”

Fanatics is supplying James with the helicopter as part of a multiyear, exclusive trading card and collectibles contract signed in 2024. Although the deal raised the antenna of investigative reporter Pablo Torre — who won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the Clippers’ salary-cap circumvention with Kawhi Leonard — NBA commissioner Adam Silver called the helicopter arrangement “perfectly appropriate.”

LeBron James performs a pregame ritual before the game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

(Caleb Bowlin / Getty Images)

Silver was at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. The Knicks celebrated their first NBA championship in 53 years with a ring ceremony and raising a banner to the rafters. They did their best to laugh off a typo on the T-shirts fans received that proclaimed the team as the 2026-2027 champions.

Despite the testy exchange with fans and enduring their “We don’t want you” chant while he shot free throws, James softened what he had said to Stephenson, sidestepping a suggestion by a reporter that the 76ers ruined the Knicks’ celebration.

“I wouldn’t say that,” James said. “It was a great night for New York fans. Fifty-plus years. I was a part of that at one point where we hadn’t won a major championship in Cleveland in over 50 years. The fans will never forget this moment.”

LeBron James scored 14 points on his debut for the Philadelphia 76ers as they defeated champions the New York Knicks on the NBA season’s opening night.

The 41-year-old James, entering a record-extending 24th season in the league with his fourth team after his summer move from the LA Lakers, also racked up seven assists as his new side triumphed 106-100.

Tyrese Maxey top-scored with 28 points for the 76ers, while Jaylen Brown, who also made his debut after joining the 76ers from the Boston Celtics in a high profile trade for Paul George, scored 19 points with eight rebounds and six assists.

The Knicks enjoyed title celebrations prior to the match, raising their third title banner to the rafters at Madison Square Garden in the presence of a crowd that included celebrity Knicks fans Ben Stiller and Spike Lee.

The Knicks ended a 53-year title drought with their victory over the San Antonio Spurs in last season’s NBA Finals but were unable to open their season with a win as the 76ers held out after taking the lead in the third quarter.

Jalen Brunson led the scoring for the Knicks with 21 points and Karl-Anthony Towns picked up 19 points with 12 rebounds.

“I could be a lot better,” James told broadcaster NBC. “Still getting my rhythm, obviously just a little bit over two weeks with the new squad.

“But I like the way we played. I think we played exceptionally well, especially defensively.”

In the opening match of the NBA’s 81st season, the Detroit Pistons fought back in the second half to win 121-113 against the Boston Celtics.

Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren added 22 points each and Duncan Robinson scored 15 of his 21 in the fourth quarter as the home side secured their victory with a 23-0 scoring run.

Celtics debutant Paul George scored 38 points for his new side in a match between last season’s top two regular-season teams.

In the night’s final encounter, back-to-back NBA most valuable player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 32 points for the Oklahoma City Thunder as they completed a 116-104 win over the San Antonio Spurs.

Stephon Castle top-scored for the Spurs with 24 points but his side were unable to match the form that saw them put out defending champions Thunder in last season’s Western Conference finals.

Victor Wembanyama made just one basket in 13 attempts for the Spurs but contributed 13 rebounds and six blocked shots and scored 12 points largely thanks to 10 free throws.

“Obviously, this is the team that eliminated us from achieving our goal,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

“But for us, I think it was more like we’re just happy to be back. It’s a longer summer when you don’t win and we felt that this summer.”