I'm sorry, it's Maxine, and you're listening to the 76ers Insider's Podcast. This podcast is part of the 76ers Podcast Network presented by Stern and Cohen Law. Search 76ers Insider wherever you get your podcasts. Suffering an injury at work can cause physical pain, but also great uncertainty about your rights. You need to retain a workers compensation law firm that is a winner like our Sixers, a firm that gets some of the best settlements but is also willing to go toe to toe with the insurance company. No settling on the cheap. This is Philly. We have grit and fight in us. Call the workers compensation law firm of Stern and Cohen, or visit their site sterncoenlaw.com. The consultation is free. Stern and Cohen are the official partners of the 76ers. They'll go ring the insurance company's bell. Call the Ubrae looks like he might be making his way toward the headset. Career night with steals, he ended up with eight. Tell me a little bit about active hands, athletic, anticipation, what was, that was amazing. Tell me a little bit more about your defense. Man, defense will win championships, it wins games tonight. We know that they're a running gun team. They play fast and they're very guard heavy when it comes to the majority of their points. So me and Caleb just buckled down and, you know, unfortunate night, I was in the same position as Paul last game to a quick early ones, but, you know, we, you know, we got it through. And a couple of those early steals, maybe even the three, you were deflecting and not, they were trying to enter the ball into eight and you just would not allow that. That was tremendous defense, mostly in a health position, is that right? Yes, sir. I mean, whatever I can do here to help this team win. And then, you know, we got one tonight, we started to get our groove together, but we have a lot of weapons. But on the defensive end, it's all energy and effort. So tonight we brought that. So let's bring that to sack. Speaking of energy and effort, how about Yabu in the second quarter, that was amazing, wasn't it? Yeah. Hey, man, I don't understand it, but he's with us. So we're not going to try to understand it. We just got to, you know, continue to rally around our brother and continue to just keep him in a good mental space to keep doing what he's doing. But he's incredible, man. I love playing with him. He's also teasing me French. So like when you say you don't understand, in other words, how explosive he is, how his, but he scores, he had clinging on him. No problem. He just went right into that. That what you mean? Yeah, man. Just, you know, his versatility. You can step behind the arc. You can finish in the paint. He could post up centers. But at the end of the day, man, like I said, he's on our side. So let's keep him in the States, man. Well, last thought and Kelly, you were terrific and we appreciate your time, but this is one of those games where you got to take care of it. You got to almost worry more about yourselves. And that's exactly what you guys did here when you played a complete game against Portland, right? Absolutely. I mean, that's what it's going to take. It's going to take us all. But we're trying to achieve bigger things in just these, you know, regular season games, but finding our rhythm is the main key. I think we're doing that. Great job. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Love you, love. Go in, y'all. This is the Philadelphia 76ers post game show presented by Parkes Casino. Maxie Doubleton. Oh, baby. I love head jam. Feet on the back down against whipping under powers by a pet slabs of the 76ers post game show right now on 97 five, the fanatic. Four straight wins for the 76ers. A season high for points, 125 margin of victory plus 22 and field goal percentage. They shot 57% in the 125 103 win in Portland over the trailblazers. I'm Matt Murphy. This is our Parkes Casino post game show. We'll check back in with Tom McGinnis as we await Nick Nurse, the Sixers coaches post game press conference. But Tom, I think we might have ruined something with the Gershaun Yabusele interview streak we had going. You had Kelly Oubre, but I guess he's worthy of it with the eight steel career high steel game after this one. He's a great guess. No doubt about it. You got to love his energy on and off the court, right? He's fun. Like he's, he's an athletic player. The Sixers got so many good pieces. It's coming together and Yabu for sure was a big part of this game. But in the end, like, look at Max, he had a whole hum game and he had 23 points. I mean, how about that, right? Paul George didn't have a great game and yet he's still at 9.6 rebounds, four assists and a steal. So that's what, that's what's neat. The 76ers hold on for one second, we just were waiting on our coach. So yeah, we had a TV guy trying to take the TV away. And we totally appreciate, you know, that they're, they, they're so good about giving us a TV. And I'm talking about the production crew, but this will allow us to see it. Hey, that's better than me in LA after we parted ways at the Lakers game. They just came up and took all the power cords out and just unplugged everything while I was on the air. Marty Dickerson back at our home, back home, he does not allow those guys to touch the stuff because we've gotten unplugged, if you will. So, but Nick Nurse, we're looking at the post game press conference and he had like maybe three questions pregame. So it was amazing. It was only about a four minute press conference earlier tonight. He's great with the media. One of the questions they posed, and this is a guy you can only, I listened to the Chauncey Phillips segment as well. And when a guy is working on like a particular piece where he's getting the answers from both coaches and the line of questioning surrounded, how do you handle post game media? Do you ever try to send a message to your team through the media and Chauncey Phillips, and again, sometimes a coach might scoff or no, and Chauncey Phillips said, no, I would never tell you guys anything that I wouldn't tell my players. But then coach Nurse had an interesting answer in this regard. He said when he first got the Toronto job, somebody an executive mentioned to him, always remember you're talking to the players. The players will read everything you say. So, and that's important too, right? And as I said, you've got to be, even when you coach today's professional players, you know, you've got to be careful because you might be instructing in a demonstrative way one player and the other players take it, except, you know what I mean? Like, it's a difficult balance for a coach, and look at all level, but particularly in the NBA where you have, you know, it's a player's league, and I said that the coach tonight in our pregame chat, like, he was talking about the give and take on what they should, on coverages and those type things, and that's totally positive. But yeah, look, and look, Doc Rivers used to always say, even the great put, they wanted to be coached hard, and apparently, reportedly, that was one of the things that came out of the Sixers meeting earlier this year, the players, you know, wanted to be coached harder, you know, Nick Nurse's coach forever, you think he can't coach hard, I'm sure he can. And guess what, that's part of how the Sixers turned it around. They practiced harder, longer, and those competitive sessions turned into what has become one of the winningest months in recent years, right, where, if I mean, would they end up winning in December? Nine or ten games? Well, they're ten for their last thirteen after the three and fourteen start, I'll circle back on that. I do want to try to touch on, at least start on Joel before coach, if we can, because I just saw courtesy of NBC Sports Philadelphia, that Joel has scored 30 plus in all nine of his games against DeAndre Aitin. What did you think about MB? Yeah. Like I said, I felt like early on, you could see Aitin had a hesitancy at both ends, and then he makes a couple jump hooks on offense. But I thought that it wasn't just Aitin, I thought they had like a little bit of weariness with Joel. I mean, he's a star player who's got a repertoire, and then I thought they started to gain a little confidence at both ends. But then Joel, tonight I thought he drove the ball more. I thought he played with more force at the beginning when he first started to get back. He was picking pop, and everything was kind of at the foul line area, and now he's playing that, and he's able to shoot that ball from those areas, fifteen, seventeen, eighteen feet, and the threes. But now he's playing from the foul line in, and he's starting to put the ball on the deck. And then in that Utah game, he started to use the show and go deal where he would fake and then come around tonight, he even did more. And now coach nurse is in fact, and you can hear him with the mic. Here's the coach. He's about to address the first question. From Joel. Nick Nurse. Responding. This is actually the best Joel offense. Yeah. I mean, listen, he was very assertive, I thought, in just his decision-making. For me, when he is driving the ball, when he's, you know, up-faking and driving it into the paint, it's pretty tough to stop him, or at least, you know, again, he drew a lot of fouls and stuff. But again, it's pretty aggressive style of offense for him to go in there and take it to the rim, which, you know, I think that's when he's at his best. It's hard for him because he's such a good mid-range shooter to not just continue to take those. But, you know, I think, again, it got us into the bonus early in a couple quarters, and we also just kind of knew we had a place to go where we could create offense and I think that gives everybody confidence. Yeah. Where does Yabu's dunk court, is that ranked first? It's pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. It was good. He's getting known for that, right? He's had some good ones in his career, but I don't know if it was that good. His second quarter was amazing. I mean, just everything he did was solid and physical and post-ups and moves the ball, hits some three. He really, really played good. He had that stretch a couple of weeks ago where, like, he didn't play a ton, maybe was a little bit quiet, getting compared to the rest of the season. Did anything re-click for him or what do you think is just the last week or so that he's had it? Yeah. I think it's partly put that a little bit on me, I'm just like still trying to figure out rotations and match-ups and sometimes it seems like we'll play against a team with like four guards out there for really long stretches and it's kind of hard to figure out how we're going to rotate the bigs in there, especially when drum's there too. But I think that we're getting enough time with him at the four, now along with Joel, that we're starting to figure it out and I got to make sure he continues to get minutes. Yeah. Tom, piggybacking on for that. Are you set with who you want to play with the second year, whether it be Joel or whether it be Tyrese? I'd like to be, but I think, again, each game, like tonight, the rotations got completely out of whack with Paul's early foul trouble and kind of continued foul trouble through the game, right? So ended up totally out of whack from the start and just kind of piecing it together. I think we had some guys play some really long stretches tonight, but that was kind of because of that. I think I got a decent feel for what we're doing, but again, we're missing a couple guys again. Like we were, as you know, we were subbing like Reggie and Kyle together and leaving Paul and Joelle out there, but that just like Kyle out and Paul and Falter, well, that little thing that we've been building a rhythm, which just went completely out the window. What I do feel good about is there is some different combinations that look like they're pretty comfortable now, like just doesn't even, like the three-wing Caleb, Kelly, Paul, looks good. And when one of them's out and the two of them are in there, that still is fine. It doesn't matter if we're putting, bringing a guard or a four. So I think we're getting a little bit, we've got some flexibility a little bit, yeah. Kelly had eight steals tonight, I guess similar questions of the one pregame about Paul, just what is he doing so well within the defense that's like allowing him to sort of have those individual humbles. Yeah, listen, those guys, there's guys who are, how many turnovers did we create tonight? And we got 36 points off turnovers tonight, I think they got 26 total turnovers, that's a lot. I think everybody was up, you know, just executing some of our schemes really well and physical and aggressive. And we talked about being physical and impacting some of their actions tonight with some hands and physicality and kind of knifeing into some of that stuff. And Kelly was in the middle of a lot of them and knocking them away. How does it feel to have a bit of a turn return to normal, see for you guys over a stretch of time, you know, where just everything is just about to hoop and, you know, not a lot of outside noise? Yeah, obviously, you know, I've been saying it for a while, this is probably 15. So, you know, we're just playing a lot better, right? I mean, and we're taking whatever comes like, again, there's an injury here or there and we just kind of keep on rolling, there's some foul trouble here or there, we kind of keep on rolling, but we're getting some, you know, probably most, probably most excited about is we're getting a little bit of a defensive, you know, mentality to us and that's going to take you a long ways, right? If you're going to go play defense on the road, especially, you're going to have a really good chance and these guys have worked at it, you know, we've had some lots of long practices and stuff to try to get better at that and it's paid off, but give them all the credit. Sixers coach Nick Nurse and kind of exactly what we were talking about when we led to his post game availability and that is that edge that came from the hard work and that's the only way that coach knows how to do it. Go back to work, roll up your sleeves and get it done and no one's going to be feeling sorry for you about injuries or how you started or whatever and Murphy, as you said, three and 14 and now the sixers with yet another win, so going on the road to Sacramento, they're going to go to Northern California for two games, they're going to actually bust down from sack to San Francisco following that game on New Year's night, they'll play January 2nd, Thursday against the Warriors at Chase Center and then go all the way back east to take on the nets over the weekend at Barclay Center, but for tonight, great win, they win 125-103 here in Portland, back to you, Murph. It's a nine and three month of December for the Philadelphia 76ers as they are now 13 and 17 overall after that start and Tom, as we continue on here with our 76ers, Parks, Casino, Post Game Show, Tom, they're going to Sacramento and Golden State with this defense right now that is swarming and we heard coach talk about it and back on media day, we heard Kelly Ubre talk about it. He had the eighth steal night, he was saying that him, Caleb Martin, Paul George, these wing defenders with their length, call them the water stoppers, he said, call us the plumbers because we're going to turn the water off for the other team star players, they'll be tasked with doing that against the bonus and Fox, but we're starting to see more of that with these plumbers on the perimeter defensively for the sixers. Let me put on my Coloshes. No, it's true, but it all starts with a bead because he's back there in the middle clogging up the paint, that rim protection is huge and a bead is awful good, you know, defensively for the sixers and then Paul George is a good defender, Ubre is a good defender, they added Caleb Martin who's a good defender, Maxi's much improved in that aspect, so it all adds up, you know what I mean, you got, that's what it takes. It takes good individual D, sometimes you'll be able to get what do they say, guard your yard and keep guys in front of you, right, and then they have switchability and then collectively they have good game plans and schemes and it adds up because he's right, you know, there's going to be nights where, you know, the threes aren't flowing, you're not getting to the line, you're not getting calls and you've got to be able to win on your defense because the game is so long, guys like Maxi can turn it on and end up having a good fourth quarter or Joel will get on a roll, right, and get the offense going, but that's how you win, right, they're not all going to be 125 point wins in terms of the total, like tonight, you've got to be able to every now and then hold teams, you know, to 106 or 99, whatever, you get the drill, but yeah, defense has been way better. Season high for Joel and Bied, 37 points plus nine rebounds, Maxi finishes with 23 points, Yabu Sele 16, Ubre with 15 and the career high eight steals, one off of tying the Sixers franchise record a good way to head into 2025 and the back-to-back against the Kings and the Warriors before rounding out the trip with a game at Brooklyn, but Tom, thank you as always. Happy New Year to you. All right, Murr, if you too, bud, thank you. Thanks to Tom McGinnis after the 125-103 win for the Sixers in Portland over the trailblazers, led by M.Bied. All five starters for Portland were in double figures, but they had those 26 turnovers that led to 36, 76ers points. Sixers also made 46% of their threes compared to 22 for the trailblazers, made 90% of their free throws, 28 free throws, while Portland missed nine of their 30, which is 70% at the line. And then overall, just shooting-wise, Sixers just shot 57% in what is their largest margin of victory this season, 22 points, compared to the home teams, 48%, 57%, 48 shooting from the field. Got a lot more to break down our stats of the game, stat of the game. The leaders throughout the box score round things out. Look at the standings where everything is with that. And of course, here are the highlights. Some of the key plays in this game with Tom McGinnis' calls, you're not going to want to miss that Gershan Yabusele poster dunk that Nick Nurse was asked about, postgame, and you're not going to want to miss Tom's call of that one. We have all of that still to get to it is just a minute past the top of the hour. So before we break and then come back with the highlights and more, we are going to pause 10 seconds for station identification here on the Sixers radio network. At the fifth full game of the season with the Sixers big three of Maxi and Bead and Paul George, they are five and O Chicago, Charlotte, Boston, Utah, and now Portland, a season high 125 points in a 125-103 win. We'll continue on when we come back. Since the 76ers, Parkes Casino, postgame show, you are listening to the Sixers radio network presented by Jackpot City Casino. Back on the 76ers postgame show presented by Parkes Casino after a 125-103 Sixers win in Portland for their fourth straight win, 13th of the season. We just set it nine and three in the month of December. They have won 10 of their last 13 games. They are 13 and 17 and they've really got this thing rolling now. We'll get to highlights with Tom McGinnis' calls shortly after just putting a bow on a few of the stats and streaks going on. Matt Murphy back with you, but a really good win. In fact, it was their biggest win by margin of the season and their most points. 125 in the plus 22 victory. They also shot a season high 57% from the field, 43 of 75 when we gave those shooting totals a moment ago. They have a bunch of double digit steel games, six of their last seven, 12 tonight after the season high 15 steals on Saturday led by eight from Kelly Oobrey Jr., which is our stat of the game. Eight steals six in the first half for Oobrey, a career high. He tied it in the first half alone with the six, but eight is a new career best for Oobrey and that department, these sixers who had nine, Mo Cheeks, Hersey Hawkins, Iverson twice and Michael Carter Williams. Oobrey leading the way with more than half of their steals tonight on the night they forced 26 turnovers and more importantly, you don't always score this many points off of that number. So 36 points off, 26 turnovers. They win the game by 22 points and now they'll have a back-to-back in the new year so they go out in 2024 with their fourth consecutive win in this season so far. Longest winning streak of the season, Spurs, Celtics, Jazz and now the Trailblazers led by a season high, 37 points for Joel Embiid, which was the most for any player in the game. His nine rebounds fell just one short of that honor and it was Tumani Kamara of the Portland Trailblazers who had 10 rebounds, six on the offensive glass. And early in this game at that, those offensive rebounds, Scoot Henderson's seven assists off the bench were the most for any player in this game was balanced assist effort for the Sixers for each from Paul George and Reggie Jackson. George had some foul trouble in this game, three in the first half, ends with nine points five fouls, six rebounds, four assists and one of the steals in 23 minutes on four of nine shooting. Players are five and oh when George and Beaten Maxie start and finish the game and those are have been part of this hot stretch for the Sixers. Here's how this game sounded as called by Tom McGinnis, the Sixers trailblazers in Portland, Rip City, Sixers in white uniforms, Blazers in red, Kyle Lowry was added to the injury list tonight or the inactive list with Drummond, Eric Gordon, K.J. Martin and Jared McCain, Portland was without former sixer Jeremy Grant, former sixer Matisse Thiebel and not a former sixer Delano Banton, Sixers went with the same starting lineup though, Tyrese Maxie, Paul George, Kelly Oubre, Jr., Caleb Martin and Joelle and Beaten. Early in the game, they took what was their largest lead of the game at the time in the first quarter and eight point lead that Portland would soon erase but it was courtesy of Maxie outside. Maxie gets a screen, goes out top, fires for three, it's good again boy, they had trouble getting around the in beat screen and Maxie knew it and Maxie able to get the feet set and drills another tray, he's three for four with two threes, Maxie with nine, sixes by eight. But DeAndre, eight in and Denny Obdia led the early comeback for the home team. Obdia, he runs out on the break for the tying dunk late in the first. Reggie Jackson looking for cutters, he goes to Yabba Sailing who fires a three, that hits the corner of the backward and they are running, it's Obdia with a sprint and a right hand jam. Whoa, our NJM drive of the game, Jenny Obdia, corner shot, awkward bounce, they got the rebound and they get the dunk to tie it at thirty one. Nine of Obdia's seventeen points in the game were in the first quarter, came over in the off season in the Malcolm Brogdon trade, it's at Brogdon and other assets to Washington. Obdia to the blazer, seventeen point game for him, eight and had eight points in the first quarter out of his twelve, twelve points for Kamara, twelve for Shade and Sharp tonight. And then Anthony Simons was the trailblazers leading scorer, twenty five points, he made four threes, thought it was five at one point, but one got overturned to a two, four rebounds four assists on a twenty five point night for blazers, point guard, Anthony Simons. It was thirty three thirty one going to the second quarter after Gershawn Yabusele put the Sixers back in front after the tie, but he was just getting started, Nick Nurse said it, his second quarter was phenomenal, it included the poster dunk, but before we get to that, how about Embiid just going to work on DeAndre eight and for to build that lead back to eight. Embiid gets the ball out of midair and now brings it across against eight in motion to the right of the lane, it beat one on one, left hand dribble spins to the glass up and in, and that's the part that a lot of people say, not a lot of guys can do that, it beat brought it down the court, turned it into a one on one and was able to spin before the help could come and he makes a pure wet down low and he laid it in. Twenty first half points for Joelle tonight in Portland, he ends with thirty seven on twelve of twenty one shooting, made his only three and made all but one of his thirteen free throws. Right after though, huge highlight, another poster dunk for Gershawn Yabusele, and it was in and one fashion. Caleb Mark has it ahead to Yabusele, Gershawn jambs it, oh baby, a right hand thrown out and he was fouled, he posterized Avida, and Yabusele is flexing it to Sixers bench, Joelle comes over, oh the Sixers got a delay again I believe, Trey Maddox taking a little air out of the balloon, what a play, he did it to LeBron and he's now done it to get it. The Olympics dunk heard around the world on LeBron James, he's done it a couple times in a Sixers uniform, Kelly Ubray Jr couldn't even really come up with the words to destroy and describe these types of plays from Yabusele when he was talking with Tom in our post game walk-off, that for the Sixers gave them a ten point lead then eleven at the line and in between was a technical free throw, it was a technical on Kyle Lowry who was inactive tonight from the Sixers bench, but I'd say it's worth it, they actually missed the free throw, they were just, they were really happy about the play, so Yabusele and the Sixers would take a 64-54 lead into the halftime locker room after outscoring them 31-23 in the second quarter alone and in that second quarter when Coach Nurse was talking about Yabusele, he went for eleven in the second quarter alone and in the first half he did most of his damage with fifteen of what would be sixteen points tonight, Gershon, Yabusele and the Sixers up ten at the half, they would pretty much cruise in this one, they started the third quarter on a 6-0 run, more maxi off of the personal record steal from Kelly Ubray Jr of his seventh he would get up to eight steals, 70-54 game later in the third quarter, it's Ubray finishing the play, he had a double digit third quarter with ten of his fifteen points this one, an alley-oop from Reggie Jackson, ten of his fifteen in the third, Ubray shot six of ten didn't make a three on three attempts, three for three at the line, eight steals 15 points, five rebounds to assist in 37 minutes for Ubray, Jackson played 18 minutes off the bench, had three points, two rebounds and four assists in only 18 minutes, 88-72 after that alley-oop and 91-72 Sixers heading to the fourth quarter, they held Portland to 18 in the third, 27-18 in the third quarter margin and then in the fourth, the regulars wouldn't have to play too long in the fourth quarter, Paul George Steele and Dung put them up 17 and Bied had a layup for, to reach the century mark as a team, 182 and Maxi beyond the arc, three plus threes in a franchise record, franchise record nine straight games for Tyrese Maxi. Kirshan Yabu-Saley-Juel around the horn they go to Maxi, baseline right wide open, good to great, three ball count and it's good, Maxi forcing the timeout, the Sixers get another three and they lead by 21, the Blazers call for time. Tyrese Maxi, one of his seven attempts, it was his third make of the game, 103-82, he had 23 points and the Sixers win, 125-103. The previous record holder for consecutive games with at least three threes at eight games was none other than Jared McCain in his rookie season as a 76er. That now belongs to Maxi, maybe they can trade that back and forth when McCain gets back after the meniscus surgery, everyone wishing him well in his recovery. Sixers have won four straight, they have won 10 of their past 13 games after this 125-103 lead by Embiid End Maxi and they stay out on the road. Some winnable games on paper as we've talked about, they are going to travel to Sacramento, they're going to play Golden State after that Wednesday, Thursday, those two games and they're going to play Brooklyn to round out a six game trip overall but they're taking care of business and when you look around the NBA tonight Sacramento, their next opponent had a 10-point win over Dallas, their first win with Doug Christie as their interim head coach, the interim head coach of the Kings, Mike Brown was let go in recent days, it's a 10-point win for Christie and the Kings but Dallas, not only was without Luca who's going to miss about a month apparently with the calf strain but Kyrie didn't play, Clegg Thompson didn't play, Derek Lively, Dante Exum and Najee Marshall were also out, Marshall serving that suspension for the fight with Nerkich of Phoenix, so that's the next opponent, they're coming off a win, Golden State won 13-95 loss against Cleveland who is now a league best 28 and 4, the Cleveland Cavaliers Warriors shot 24% from 3, Steph was 3 for 11 and the Cavs are on a 7 game winning streak. Quick peek at the standings, 11th, Detroit is 14 and 18, the Sixers are 13 and 17, Detroit is in the 10-spot, the Bulls moved up to 15 and 18 in the 9-spot, but that's the play-in tournament picture right now as the Sixers keep gaining ground, there are only three games back as we speak of the Milwaukee Bucks for the 6-spot which is the last guaranteed playoff spot, the Bucks are 16 and 14 and the Sixers are 13 and 17 after this win over the Trailblazers, this has been the 76ers post game show presented by Parks Casino, again the final score, the Sixers 125, the Trailblazers 103, thanks so much to our producers Matt Menaric and Sean Rodman and of course Tom McGinnis on the call, that next Sixers game Wednesday night in Sacramento, the first of two more consecutive 10 p.m. Eastern Road starts against the Kings and Warriors on a back-to-back and our post game, our pre-game coverage here on the Sixers radio network presented by Jack Potts City Casino will begin at 950 Eastern. Until then, Matt Murphy saying thanks so much for listening, the Sixers have wins in 10 of their last 13, happy new year, take care everyone. Elf Beauty is a huge success story, but did you know they believe their success is in part due to the diversity of their board and the data backs them up? The not-so-white paper created in collaboration with North Carolina A&T connects the dots between diverse corporate boards and positive results, which can include a higher return on equity, better price-to-earnings ratios, and even fewer discrimination lawsuits. Read it yourself at elfbeauty.com/notso-whitepaper. [BLANK_AUDIO]
