The Sixers and Cavaliers are back at it Friday night at Rocket Arena, and this one carries a little extra weight in the NBA Cup standings.
That alone would make the rematch worth watching. But the first meeting between these teams on Oct. 22 turned into one of the wildest games of Philadelphia’s season. Cleveland led by 29 points, took a 69-45 edge into halftime, and still walked away with a 114-106 loss after the Sixers ripped off a 69-37 second half.
It was the biggest comeback in Sixers history since the NBA started keeping detailed play-by-play data in 1997-98. Only nine other teams in that span had erased a deficit of at least 29 points.
Now the teams meet again with the context changed but the memory still fresh. Philadelphia is 8-1 and riding a five-game winning streak after opening Cup play with a 98-93 win over the Knicks. Cleveland is 4-4, has lost two straight, and will be making its Cup debut.
The first game was decided by more than shot-making. It started with turnovers, then flipped when Philadelphia’s pressure took over.
The Sixers gave it away 15 times in the first half, and Cleveland turned that into a 22-6 edge in points off turnovers. After halftime, the Cavs coughed it up 21 times by the end of the night, and that advantage disappeared. The points off turnovers finished tied at 22 apiece.
“They upped their pressure and physicality,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson said after the game. “It was pretty clear. We did not handle it well.”
Philadelphia’s second-half surge came largely through its starters, who accounted for 64 of the team’s 69 points after the break. Tyrese Maxey led the way with 28 points, and a game that looked over became a franchise-record comeback.
Turnovers have been a very different story for the Sixers this season. They’re averaging 12.9 giveaways per 100 possessions, the second-lowest mark in the league, and they rank third in turnover differential at 3.4 fewer giveaways than their opponents.
That matters for a team that came into the year wanting to play faster. Philadelphia has pushed tempo without constantly handing possessions away, and the ball movement has been part of that.
LeBron James’ role as the primary facilitator has helped. So has Maxey’s willingness to move it when defenses trap him.
Joel Embiid is averaging 5.2 assists, third among qualified centers, and the Sixers have also leaned more on VJ Edgecombe to make decisions late in games.
Cleveland, meanwhile, has not been forcing many mistakes on the other end. The Cavs enter Friday near the bottom of the league in opponent turnover rate.
The matchup also brings together one of the league’s best defenses and one of its better offenses. Philadelphia is allowing 105.1 points per 100 possessions, which ranks second in the NBA, while Cleveland’s offense sits ninth.
The Sixers have held opponents to a 50 percent effective field-goal percentage and 31.8 percent shooting from three. They’ve also done a good job limiting clean looks, with only 46 percent of opponent three-point attempts classified as wide open, the fifth-lowest rate in the league. Opponents have also taken just 22 percent of their threes from the corners.
Still, there’s a warning sign in the numbers: based on the quality of shots Philadelphia has allowed, only Washington’s opponents have underperformed their expected effective field-goal percentage by a wider margin. In other words, the Sixers have defended well, but that kind of cold shooting probably won’t last forever.
Cleveland has enough shot creation to test that. Donovan Mitchell, James Harden and Evan Mobley can all put pressure on a defense in different ways, and the Cavs’ three-point volume is a big part of their identity. They’re taking exactly 42 threes per game and hitting 37.2 percent of them.
That’s what made the first meeting so unusual. Cleveland went just 7 for 29 from deep in Philadelphia, with Mitchell, Harden and De’Andre Hunter combining to go 3 for 17. The Cavs still scored 60 points in the paint and finished with 106, but that 24.1 percent night from three opened the door for the Sixers’ comeback.
Mitchell is coming off a 27-point game against Oklahoma City and had 32 in the first meeting with Philadelphia. Harden scored 16 in that game, but his six turnovers became costly once the Sixers turned up the pressure.
Another key area is the glass, where Cleveland has a clear edge. Philadelphia is being outrebounded by 5.1 per game, while the Cavs rank sixth in the league at 47.5 rebounds per contest.
The Sixers have already survived one ugly rebounding night, beating Milwaukee by 11 despite getting outrebounded by 22. But that’s not a formula they’ll want to keep testing against Cleveland’s size. Mobley had 18 points and eight rebounds in the first meeting, and Jarrett Allen added 14 points and seven boards as the Cavs won the rebounding battle 46-44.
Allen’s status is one of the biggest variables heading into Friday. Cleveland listed him as questionable with a right knee injury after he left Wednesday’s loss to Oklahoma City in the first quarter. He collided knee-to-knee with Thunder forward Chet Holmgren and did not return.
The Cavs also listed Peyton Watson as questionable with right hamstring soreness and Tyrese Proctor as questionable with an ankle injury. Proctor left Wednesday’s game in the fourth quarter. Jaylon Tyson is out with a right ankle sprain.
If Allen can’t go, Thomas Bryant would likely take on more of the center minutes behind Mobley. If he does play, Cleveland would have the same starting frontcourt that helped it control the boards in the first meeting.
Atkinson has made the possession battle a point of emphasis during Cleveland’s two-game slide.
“You’ve got to get more shots than the other team,” he said this week. “Rebounding is a big part of it.”
That carries even more weight in the NBA Cup, where point differential is the second tiebreaker after head-to-head results. Philadelphia enters at 1-0 with a plus-five differential in East Group B. Miami is also 1-0 at plus-20, while Cleveland is opening group play.
The Sixers already know they can climb out of a 29-point hole against these Cavs. Friday, they’d probably prefer a much cleaner route.
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