NEW YORK -- After sitting out the preseason opener, LeBron James took the floor for the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night. The crowd inside the Barclays Center gave him a loud ovation during starting intros and every time he touched the ball as the crowd noise swelled in anticipation of what he was about to do.
The Sixers fell to the Brooklyn Nets 114-108, but none of that mattered. James was able to get out there in a Sixers uniform. In 18 minutes, James had 10 points, shot 8-for-8 from the free-throw line, had five assists, and four rebounds. He controlled the game every time he had the ball in his hands and made a big impact out on the floor.
"We’re just trying to build," James said after the contest. "Build on what we’ve been doing in training
camp. So it did feel good to get pretty much everyone that was active tonight, get out there and get some run."
It wasn't always pretty as the Sixers did commit some head-scratching turnovers, but that's going to happen in these types of games. Philadelphia is still in the process of getting everybody on the same page and making sure chemistry and cohesion is built. It is going to take time, but James is anticipating that time. He knows it's still early days for the Sixers.
"Obviously, a small sample size, and we're still trying to learn each other on the floor," James added. "We're still trying to put each other in a position to be successful and complement each other the best way we can out on the floor. But it's going to take some time. Tonight was, you know, a good sample size for us to build on."
With that being said, while there are certainly some mistakes the Sixers need to clean up, James is happy with what he's been able to see from the early days. He and young VJ Edgecombe hooked up for a big play and the two-man game between himself and Joel Embiid yielded some encouraging results. The Nets are a young team that will be scrappy and fight to force turnovers and such. It will be on Philadelphia to continue growing on this.
"It's great," James said "I mean, I thought we played some pretty good ball. I think, obviously, the unforced turnovers, giving them pick sixes, a team like that is very active. Has a lot of speed, a lot of length. Their job is to get up and pressure you, just to try to make you play against the shot clock. Obviously, late in the shot clock. So, besides the pick sixes, turnovers that we had, we played some really good ball, and it's good to go against a team like that."
The Sixers will take on the Boston Celtics on the road on Saturday to continue the preseason schedule.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: LeBron James reacts to preseason debut after Sixers fall to Nets
