Instant observations: Paul George carries Sixers down the stretch vs. Bucks

Paul George had one of his most consequential performances as a Sixers player, carrying the 76ers on offense in crunch time to earn a 116-101 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. George scored 20 points to go with five rebounds and five assists to earn Philly’s third straight win.

Here’s what I saw.

Paul George does everything

Paul George has not come close to matching the value of his massive contract, but with health in his favor and a more coherent team on the floor this season, he has been absolutely rock solid. For the season, the recipe for success has been taking responsibility off of his plate on offense while relying on him to be an elite team defender, and he remains an outstanding playmaker on stunts and weakside rotations even with his top-end athleticism a thing of the past.

The stats don’t necessarily show that from the Milwaukee game, but in the aggregate, the Sixers’ defense is better by orders of magnitude when they have George on the floor. A 6’8″ wing who shows up in the right place at the right time over and over and over again throws a wrench in the gears of a lot of offenses, which is especially true for a team missing its offensive engine, as Milwaukee was on Friday night.

(Let’s try to ignore George’s egregious foul to set up a four-point play for Gary Trent Jr. at the start of the fourth. Moving on.)

But the Sixers had to change the offensive formula a bit on Friday night. Tyrese Maxey was relatively uninvolved on the offense, dragging around the floor after a huge usage night against the Warriors back in Philly on Thursday. Jared McCain’s jumper completely disappeared late in the game. Quentin Grimes with more offensive responsibility is and maybe will always be a no-go. So with the game still there for the taking midway through the fourth, Nurse turned the ball over to George, who took total control of things and settled down the young offense.

With the lead dwindling, George canned two big midrange jumpers over outstretched arms to force a Milwaukee. A few possessions later, he cleared out against Kevin Porter Jr. and waited for the reach-in foul, ripping through for two shots at the line to settle them down again. And after sitting out the previous night, George had the legs to keep running and rotating on defense when his teammates had already let go of the rope, making a huge transition stop late in the fourth to stop the bleeding. And with George cooking, he drew a hard double that earned a wide-open three for VJ Edgecombe deep in the fourth, a shot that ultimately put this game out of reach.

The veteran wing had a wonderfully efficient night and did what many asked from him last season. He recognized a moment where his team desparately needed a lift and made sure he found the ball.

Everybody on the bench eats

Any team hoping to get a win on the second half of a road back-to-back needs to get a lift from its bench players. It’s hard to ask Tyrese Maxey to log team-carrying performances two nights in a row, even if he has proven capable of it this season. Great news: Philadelphia got contributions from almost everyone, including “Coach” Kyle Lowry, who stepped into backup point guard minutes after Thursday’s tumultuous second half.

Although Dominick Barlow has taken the title of best Sixers two-way signing for the offseason, that is no slight against Jabari Walker. The former Blazers forward arrived here with a stellar reputation as a rebounder and defender, both of which have shown up for the Sixers this year. But Walker’s teammates and coaches all know the main question surrounding his game. Will he take and make enough threes to keep defenses honest?

Despite encouragement from the group, Walker has been gun-shy at times in Philadelphia, but he has started to find the range over the last week. After knocking down a pair of threes in a game vs. the Wizards early this week, Walker went on a shooting rampage against the Bucks, hitting his first four three-point attempts to help blow open the game for Philly. Walker was so in the zone that the young veteran uncorked a contested heat check in transition, ultimately airballing his fifth attempt of the night, bringing the good times from downtown to a screeching halt.

Even outside of the hot start, it was another stellar performance from Walker, who is an absolute badass hunting down boards on both ends of the floor. His tenacity got him a couple of loose balls on plays where he seemed to have very little chance to come up with the ball, a reminder that effort and a little bit of size can be all it takes on the glass. He’s a beloved teammate in that locker room, a good dude who was in many of their offseason runs and events, and the bench was fired up watching him bomb away against Milwaukee, armed with the knowledge that he’d earned that moment.

Quentin Grimes is one of the more maddening/confusing passers I’ve ever covered, as likely to throw a duck out of bounds as he is a lightning-fast bounce pass into your hands, but boy, he can shoot the hell out of the ball when he gets catch-and-shoot chances. Although Grimes has a tougher fight for minutes when the four-guard group is all healthy and playing well, he stands to benefit from improved play out of McCain and Edgecombe, who can set him up for more standstill jumpers.

Adem Bona has offered more bad than good for most of this season, but he had a strong night at backup center, at least in the play finishing role. He did a good job of positioning himself for dunker spot touches and had some nice self-creation flashes in the first half, hitting a tough teardrop after driving downhill from the perimeter. And while this isn’t something to throw a parade over, Bona’s hands were much better on Friday than in an average game, with the second-year big holding onto some very tough passes and rebounds in traffic.

Kyle Lowry hitting a finger guns celebration on a second-quarter three that pushed Philadelphia to a 22-point lead feels like the best summary of how the first half went. Being in a spot where Lowry plays well enough to play over half of a quarter says a lot about the team’s performance, but credit to the wily veteran for coming prepared despite a total lack of reps and time in recent weeks.

Point being, a hell of a night from the reserves.

Other notes

— The Sixers have been more responsible with VJ Edgecombe than I expected coming off of his calf injury, and I appreciate that a great deal after watching them grind him into dust over the first month of the season. As much as I want to see him play and develop, they need to make sure they’re thinking about his next 10 years and not just the next 10 games.

In limited minutes, Edgecombe played outstanding point of attack defense and offered good, if inconsistent, offense. Coming off of Thursday’s roller coaster night as a ballhandler, he mostly deferred to others. Here is your obligatory Edgecombe highlight of the night, a sick two-handed slam from the third quarter:

77 cleared for takeoff 🛫 pic.twitter.com/iChY0oshVj

— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 6, 2025

— It’s a bit worrying that Nick Nurse couldn’t guess in advance that minutes for 39-year-old Lowry probably wouldn’t go well in both halves.