NEW YORK — There was just over a minute left, and the home half of the Madison Square Garden crowd had ceded its ground. As James Harden gathered in the errant shot on the baseline, the building swelled with applause. Later, the Sixers' newest superstar would shrug off the triple-double with the casual air of a man who had already logged 67 of them in his career. But for the thousands of Philadelphians who'd traveled north to get their first glimpse of Harden in a Sixers uniform three days ahead of his home debut, the moment meant something. It wasn't just a milestone. It was a confirmation.
"I'm looking forward to Wednesday," said Harden of his looming Wells Fargo Center debut. "Tonight felt like we were in Philly."
Not that anybody needed an arbitrary statistical threshold to convince them of the things they'd spent four quarters watching. By the time Harden and the Sixers dribbled out the closing moments of a 125-109 win over the Knicks, they'd made the reality of their new era abundantly clear. The city has never seen a team like this before. The NBA may not have, either.
That's not hyperbole. Turns out, when you take the game's best two-way big man and pair him with one of its best perimeter playmakers, all that really needs to happen is to give them the ball and let them play. Two days after scoring 133 points in an all-out assault on the Timberwolves in Harden's debut, the Sixers put up 125 against the Knicks despite shooting just 10-of-33 from three-point range. The numbers are so laughable that it is difficult to pick one. In the two games combined, each of the Sixers' starters is at least +33. Harden, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey have combined to score 176 points on 52-of-92 shooting. On Sunday, Embiid attempted 27 free throws, the most of any NBA player since 2019. As a team, the Sixers attempted 44, tied for the most in the league this season.
To a certain extent, the early results are not surprising. Anybody who has watched the Sixers evolution over the last four years could tell you what they were lacking.
"We never had anybody that the defense really respected coming up in the pick-and-roll as a guard," Embiid said. "It causes a reaction in the defenders. It gets all of us wide open."
Yet even Embiid seems unable to wrap his head around just how perfect the thing has looked. Think about all the times you've seen his body language at its worst: right now, it is the opposite of that. After four years of trial-and-error that amounted to a glorified game of throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks, the Sixers not only found a player who complements their MVP big man, they may have found the one who does it best.
That's not something many people could have expected to say as they contemplated the potential of an Embiid-Harden pairing during the run-up to the Feb. 11 trade deadline. Those who'd watched Harden from afar knew that he would give the Sixers a perimeter scorer unlike any they'd ever managed to slot alongside Embiid. And, frankly, that alone was enough to warrant a full-throated endorsement of Daryl Morey's Melville-ian quest to harpoon himself a reunion with his former Rockets bell cow. But in Harden's first two games with the Sixers, he has shown the potential to be a far more transformative piece than anybody but Morey could have predicted.
You saw it during a first quarter possession where Harden drew a crowd of defenders near the elbow and then zipped a pass to an uncovered Embiid on the weakside low block. You saw it later when he hit Tyrese Maxey with a perfect chest pass on the opposite wing, allowing the second-year phenom to step rhythmically into a knock-down three-pointer. In two games, Harden has delivered a handful of passes that are technically better and more productive than any the recipient has seen prior as a Sixer. On Sunday, six of his 16 assists went to Embiid, who has spent much of the last eight quarters navigating his newfound open space with an awestruck smile on his face.
"Unstoppable," said Embiid, who scored 37 points while shooting 7-of-18 from the field and a ridiculous 23-of-27 from the foul line. "What are you really gonna do? He's a great passer and, obviously, I got someone that attracts a lot of attention so you gotta make a decision. Do you stay on me or do you stay on him?"
The passing ability is the thing that many of us failed to properly account for as we pondered the possibilities of an Embiid-Harden pairing. It was a defensible oversight on a couple of accounts. First, we've never seen Harden operating in an environment like this. Part of the reason he arrived in Philly with a reputation as a ball-dominant isolation scorer is that is what he was. In his last three seasons in Houston he averaged nearly three times as many field goal attempts as assists. Most of the damage he did as a passer came in the form of pick-and-roll or drive-and-kick. We've never seen him play with a big man who can do the things that Embiid does. Second, and just as important, we've never seen Embiid operate with a point guard who can dribble and pass and shoot. It was always taken for granted that he is not a pick-and-roll big man. But it is looking increasingly likely that the problem lay on the other side of the transaction.
That's either scary or exciting, depending on if you are a teammate or an opponent. The Sixers have never had a player who can create the way Harden can in a half court set. Ben Simmons had a lot of strengths. But he was not half the point guard that Harden is. The mind-boggling thing to consider is that Harden still has the skills to be the scorer he was in Houston. The Sixers simply have not needed it yet.
"We've got a long way to go," Harden said.
He may not have meant it this way, but it sounded like a threat.
