Paul George and Tyrese Maxey shine (from what we saw) as the Sixers lose their first real preseason game to the T-Wolves

Paul George took the court for the first time as a Sixer in the team’s second preseason contest of 2024 – and what a viewing experience it was.

Philadelphia lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves 121-111, but the broadcast only showed the final three quarters. George was worth it, though, finishing with 23 points on 8 of 15 shooting and 4 of 9 on three. Tyrese Maxey had 21 points by shooting 50% from the field and Kelly Oubre Jr. finished with 16 points by shooting 6 of 9 from the field.

Joel Embiid did not travel for Philadelphia and Minnesota did not play Rudy Gobert or Julius Randle. With the Sixers also playing tomorrow, Nick Nurse gave a pretty good idea before the game about who will be playing tonight and who will be playing tomorrow.

So I’ll do my best to do more than just summarize what the broadcast experience was like, but here goes.

Here are some thoughts on the buzzer.

First quarter

• So the broadcast seemed like a three-minute event. Most of the time you had about 30 seconds of play time before you were faced with a graphic that had technical difficulties. It doesn’t sound like Sixers fans missed anything. They shot 26.9% from the floor and 25% from behind the three-point line in the first frame.
• Miraculously, one of the few things that was visible on the broadcast in the first quarter was George’s first shot attempt – they were long two-point attempts that he missed. So we had to listen to George’s first basket in a Sixers jersey. At least the social media team had a good view.

• Nurse again joined Guerschon Yabusele from the bench to relieve Andre Drummond, despite playing against a slightly bigger team than the New Zealand Breakers. Yabu only took one shot in the first half, but it was a three-pointer. The Sixers trailed by eight to one.

Second quarter

• So the show came back at the start of the second show, where we found out that there was supposed to be a Wolves radio team too – we didn’t hear anything from them in the first part. It went downhill again for about a minute, but came back steadily for the rest of the quarter.
• During this time, Jared McCain and Adem Bona reported, two of the few players who were able to play both games this weekend. Drummond found McCain with a nice backcut that led to free throws; McCain’s only points of the half.
• The broadcast really came back at the perfect time as George started knocking down some shots. He had a few nice drives to the basket, but his pull-up threes were where he really got going. He finished the half with 18 points, shooting 4 of 8 from downtown and making sure no one cared that the Sixers were down 17 points at halftime. For those who didn’t watch the game at all, Erin Grugan of the Liberty Ballers put together some of the televised PG throws from halftime.

Third quarter

• The starters were back out there to start the second half. They ended up playing about half the quarter. They gave a glimpse of how disruptive this team can be on the wing by managing three straight possessions in the half.
• The Wolves led comfortably by around 20 points for most of this game, but the Sixers got hot and significantly blew that lead. Maxey got hot and finished with 21 points after a pretty cold start, and George had another great win before calling it a night.

• Reggie Jackson first reported at 5:34 a.m. and Ricky Council IV not long after. It feels significant that Jackson has only played in the second half so far, but of course a lot can change. Minnesota made a quick run and extended its lead back to eight after the third period.

Fourth quarter

• The Sixers opened the frame with a unit of rotation hopefuls. Something they did really well, no matter who was in the game, was turn the Wolves around and that really helped them get out to the big lead. They finished the game with nine steals.
• It wasn’t just the sloppy preseason basketball they took advantage of. Council had his patented transition dunk of the night, KJ Martin decisively rejected a poster attempt from Josh Minnott and Jared McCain also had a few throws from three.

• Even with the pre-game breakdown of who will play today and who will play tomorrow, we still saw almost the entire squad at some point tonight. The only players who didn’t see the field tonight were Max Fiedler, Isiah Mobley and Judah Mintz. The remaining group of two barely managed to make the 20-point comeback.
• The Sixers are back in action *checks notes…tomorrow night? OK. If you have NBA League Pass, you can watch a real broadcast feed when they take on the Celtics in Boston tomorrow at 8 p.m