LeBron James spent his first home game in a Philadelphia jersey watching his new team fall behind by 29 points, and somehow that isn’t even the worst part for him. Per CBS News, the Sixers’ 114-106 comeback win over the Cleveland Cavaliers Thursday night, erasing a 29-point deficit, was the largest comeback of LeBron’s 24-season career. That’s 24 seasons, an NBA record, and his own team still nearly turned his home debut into a disaster.
It didn’t stay a disaster.
Cleveland led by as many as 29 at one point, and still led 69-45 at halftime, with Donovan Mitchell scoring 22 of his 32 points before the break. The Sixers’ home opener, in LeBron’s first year wearing their jersey, looked like it was heading toward a referendum on the whole offseason.
Then Joel Embiid scored seven straight points in the fourth quarter to give Philadelphia its first lead of the night, 96-95, and the Sixers 29-point comeback turned into a full-blown track meet. Tyrese Maxey finished with a game-high 32 points, and per CBS News, he was the one who got the decisive 15-0 fourth-quarter run rolling. He also spent stretches of that same quarter guarding James Harden, his former Sixers teammate who now plays for Cleveland, a nice bit of petty theater on the side.
That’s where this gets messy, if you’ve spent since July wondering whether Jaylen Brown closes games.
The box score credits Maxey’s run. PhillyVoice has a different version, crediting a 13-0 run to Brown creating his own offense while Maxey guarded Harden “nose-to-nose” at the other end. Nobody’s lying. Everyone just watched a different six minutes of the same quarter.
What isn’t in dispute: Brown scored 10 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter, per the Philadelphia Inquirer, including six straight that stretched Embiid’s 96-95 lead to 102-95 before he closed it out with a dagger layup for an 8-point cushion with 44 seconds left. That’s Jaylen Brown’s fourth quarter in two sentences, and it’s the actual answer to the question Philadelphia’s been asking since July.
Here’s the whole ugly-to-gorgeous arc in one clip:
https://twitter.com/NBAPerformances/status/2113469754958872759
The trade, for anyone who blinked: the Celtics sent Brown to Philadelphia on July 6 as part of the trade that sent Paul George to Boston, according to Hoops Rumors. Four draft picks came back the other way, ending a nine-year partnership with Jayson Tatum that won a title in 2024, with Brown as Finals MVP. George’s two years in Philadelphia were rough enough to include a 25-game suspension, so call it a mercy swap in both directions.
The only thing Brown said about the trade back in July was one line, nothing more, which in retrospect tracks. The guy let his fourth quarter do the talking instead.
LeBron, for what it’s worth, didn’t exactly sit around waiting to be saved. He finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, got a couple of easy buckets off steals including an uncontested two-handed slam, and tossed his pregame chalk for the first time as a Sixer at home:
https://twitter.com/ESPNNBA/status/2113411240340885706
Figure out for yourself whether that’s cute continuity or just funny timing, considering his new team nearly blew a 29-point lead he didn’t build.
Boston, presumably, is not thrilled to see Brown’s receipts stacking up already.
