Maxey's 27 and LeBron's Last-Second Putback Lift Sixers Past Knicks by Five

The Philadelphia 76ers beat the New York Knicks by five points in an NBA Cup group-stage game, extending their strong start to the season. The contest stayed undecided until the final two minutes and was settled in the last 12 seconds, when LeBron James converted a putback off a Tyrese Maxey airball to give Philadelphia the lead for good. It is the Sixers' fifth win in six games; the Knicks have now lost four of six. Maxey led the team with 27 points. He opened the third quarter with five quick points and handled primary ball-handling duties for most of the night. Off the bench, Anfernee Simons added 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting — 63.6 percent — a contribution that mattered even more with Jaylen Brown sidelined by a knee issue. Simons filled the secondary scoring-creator role in Brown's absence. Philadelphia's first half was ruthlessly efficient. The Sixers shot 55 percent from the field in both the first and second quarters — well above the league average of roughly 47 percent — and the number reflected sustained dominance rather than a single-quarter spike. The halftime score was 53-44. Philadelphia built a cushion of as many as 14 points in the third quarter. Over the final five and a half minutes of that period, Simons kept the team afloat with three 3-pointers, two free throws and a fadeaway. New York, however, refused to fold and dragged the game to the wire. The Knicks' comeback was written by the Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson pairing. Towns scored seven points in a two-minute burst — a three-point play, a 3-pointer and a driving layup — and his 3 cut the deficit to 87-85. New York later pulled to within two at 85-87 and then 85-83. Towns' stretch was a textbook display of stretch-five spacing that repeatedly punished Philadelphia's paint protection. He finished with a productive 22 points and 12 rebounds. In the fourth, Philadelphia led by 11 before New York closed to within two. The clutch sequence over the final five minutes ran: a Brunson 3 (Knicks up one), a tough LeBron fadeaway (Sixers up one), then a VJ Edgecombe 3 at the shot-clock buzzer that made it 94-90. Brunson split free throws, and with 11.9 seconds left LeBron converted a putback off Maxey's airball to seal it. The box score shows a balanced Philadelphia attack — Maxey 27, Simons 21, LeBron 20, Edgecombe 13. LeBron's line read 20 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists, close to a triple-double. His real value came not in volume scoring but in late-clock shot-making and rebounding positioning. Notably, Maxey was the on-ball closer and the veteran salvaged his miss on the glass — a sign of clearly defined late-game roles. Brunson, by contrast, had a poor night — 8-of-22 from the field, or 36.4 percent. That inefficiency is New York's biggest concern. When the pick-and-roll was taken away, the Knicks' offense collapsed into isolation play and the supporting cast did not compensate. It is a pattern that could become a serious playoff problem when opposing defenses take away the first option. Technically, Philadelphia's win did not come from schematic innovation but from shot-making and late second-chance points. The margin was built on late-clock isolation and an offensive rebound off an airball — a low-replicability pathway. Against teams that switch and load up on Maxey, the Sixers showed no clear Plan B beyond 'give the ball to the closer.' The most worrying number is the lead leakage. Philadelphia surrendered two separate double-digit cushions in this game — a 14-point third-quarter lead shrank to five, and an 11-point fourth-quarter lead shrank to two. In isolation that can look like coincidence, but if the pattern repeats over the early season it will prove costly. Rookie Edgecombe added 13 points, including the decisive shot-clock 3. Production at that level on a rookie-scale contract is surplus value against the salary cap, provided it holds. That is precisely the kind of value that gives Philadelphia room to manoeuvre in future contract management. Looking at the wider picture, the Sixers are 5-1 and the Knicks 2-4. Over six games that gap is directional but not decisive. Crucially, two of New York's four losses have come against Philadelphia — a direct rival rather than a random opponent, which matters for both tiebreakers and psychology. Losing twice in six games to the same team may reflect a stylistic matchup rather than luck. On risk: the biggest is Philadelphia's closing reliability — the team survived two separate comebacks only through late shot-making and one offensive rebound. The second is Brown's knee, which widens the gap between star-level pay and availability. The third is the veteran star's workload; managing his minutes across a long season will pressure the team's depth and shape the roles of Simons and Edgecombe. For New York, the main issues are Brunson's shot quality and the external pressure generated by a 2-4 start, which could surface well before the All-Star break. Looking ahead: point differential matters in NBA Cup group play, so a five-point margin sits in neutral territory and yields no particular tiebreaker edge. The next few games will show whether this is an early-season snapshot or a durable trend. For now, the picture is this — Philadelphia is winning, but making games far tighter than they need to be.