The 2025-26 season ended for the Cleveland Cavaliers the night they surrendered a 22-point fourth-quarter lead at Madison Square Garden. Three more games still had to be played, but they were mere formalities. The team was already dead, and those games were just the walk to the funeral home. More than five months later, it still looks that way.
And yet the start couldn’t have been more promising. The ball moved well, the Cavs dominated the paint at both ends, Mitchell was in star mode and the bench brought real physicality. Picture a fan who switched off at that point, with the home crowd booing a 29-point deficit. They would have gone to bed thinking: watch out, the Cavs might just be this year’s team.
But, as the saying goes, the higher you climb, the harder the fall. And the collapse with which the Ohio side went from leading 40-69 to losing 114-106 is one of those that will echo through the league’s history.
Two different attitudes
When one of these impossible comebacks happens, it’s fairly easy to look back and say it was predictable and that it was coming from the moment the deficit dropped below 20 points. But if there is one night when credibility can be given to anyone who claims to be an oracle, it is this one. Because, barely 90 seconds into the second half, it became clear that we were looking at two teams that were very different mentally.
In Philadelphia there was a radical change in attitude and intensity that quickly turned the energy of the arena around. After a very grey first half, with slow movement and a clear lack of ideas in half-court sets, Nick Nurse’s men understood this was a game they had to win by shifting up two gears, and they didn’t hesitate to do so. With not all the pieces yet fitting together, their solution was to rely more on their intensity than their talent. And it turns out they have plenty of that too.
With suffocating full-court pressure, much tighter marking to disrupt receptions and a higher level of contact, the 76ers began to make life difficult for the Cavs, who had been very comfortable during the first 24 minutes. And as they forced missed shots, bad passes and turnovers, they picked up the pace and scored in transition to gradually cut the deficit. This, one way or another, was driven by one man.
Tyrese Maxey seems to have decided this is his team. Perhaps others will have to raise their level when it really matters, but the guard has started the season not only pulling the cart in terms of play but also spiritually. He not only led the attack with 32 points, but was also the one who changed the game’s dynamic and spread his energy to his teammates by pressuring the ball handler, tightening passing lanes, getting hands in, and starting and finishing transitions.
PHILLY IS ON A 33-11 RUN 💨 After trailing by as many as 29 points, Tyrese Maxey (20 PTS) cuts the deficit to 7! https://t.co/L65VKNDiKx
— NBA (@NBA) October 23, 2026
Throughout the second half there was time for everyone, from a LeBron James who was his best partner in the race to Embiid and Brown, who went from quiet to dominant and emerged as stars in the fourth quarter. But the constant was him. The one who never stopped running, pressing and keeping his teammates at the pace that allowed them to take over was always him. And yet, after 37 minutes of non-stop action, he still had the legs and precision to convert the floater that killed the game and completed the feat.
A feat only slightly diminished by having come against a team whose response was nil. In every sense. Emotionally, the long faces and body language suggested the comeback from the 6-0 run with which Philly opened the third quarter; on the court, there was no answer when the home side’s aggression made it hard to score near the rim and when Mitchell’s inspiration stopped being enough. Only lethargy. The same as five months ago.