Happy New Year! I hope 2026 has started as well for you as it did for the Philadelphia 76ers, who had one of their finer performances of the season in taking down the Dallas Mavericks, 123-108, on New Year’s Day. Now, the Sixers will head back up to Madison Square Garden to face the New York Knicks, where they just won a couple weeks ago, 116-107, behind a combined 53 points from the starting backcourt of Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe.
Tonight, they should have reinforcements in the frontcourt, as
Joel Embiid is listed as probable for what would be his first game playing at the Garden since the 2024 NBA Playoffs. The big man would be taking the court for his third game in five days, which is a signficant step forward from the sort of knee injury management we were seeing earlier in the season. In the previous two wins, he played a season-high 38 minutes in coming two assists shy of a triple-double against Memphis, and tallied an efficient 22 points and six assists across 35 minutes against the Mavericks. I’m not saying we’re anywhere close to out of the woods in terms of Embiid’s health, but it sure has been nice to see him in the role of “functional basketball player” again, rather than “roster liability”.
Still, the Sixers franchise is now firmly in the hands of their young guards. After a mini-slump towards the end of December, Maxey has put up consecutive 34-point games with double-digit assists. He was rightfully fourth overall across the entire league in All-Star fan voting at the last release. That’s a fair measure of the type of player the Sixers now have and the type of season Tyrese is putting together. Meanwhile rookie VJ Edgecombe is performing like the clutchest player in the NBA and doing incredible things like blocking the same shot twice in mid-air. He has understandably had some rookie bumps along the way, but both the floor and ceiling are incredibly high for the young man.
Philadelphia has a relatively clean injury report for tonight, with Embiid having the probable listing and just Kelly Oubre Jr and Trendon Watford remaining out. They’ll be catching the Knicks on the tail end of a back-to-back, after New York lost, 111-99, to Atlanta yesterday. Karl-Anthony Towns (illness), Mitchell Robinson (ankle injury management), and Josh Hart (ankle) all missed that contest, in addition to Landry Shamet remaining out with his shoulder injury. Hart has now missed four straight games so it’s unclear how close he was to suiting up, but I’d expect Towns and Robinson back out there tonight.
We should be in for a fun watch this evening. Edgecombe did a terrific job on Jalen Brunson in the last meeting, as Brunson shot just 7-of-22 from the field (don’t worry, Knicks fans, you’ll get to chalk it up to a back-to-back for the second straight time if it happens again). I imagine Jalen will have some adjustments to how VJ defended him last time, though. Wins against Memphis and Dallas are exciting and fun, but nothing beats seeing the Sixers take down the Knicks in front of the New York crowd. We’ll see if the Sixers are able to pull it off for the second time in as many weeks.
Game Details
When: Saturday, January 3, 7:30 p.m. ET
Where: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
Watch: NBC Sports Philadelphia, NBA TV
Radio: 97.5 The Fanatic
Follow: @LibertyBallers
