{"id":234009,"date":"2025-10-23T03:07:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T03:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234009\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T03:07:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T03:07:16","slug":"edgecombes-34-points-most-in-debut-since-wilt-as-sixers-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234009\/","title":{"rendered":"Edgecombe&#8217;s 34 points most in debut since Wilt as Sixers win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BOSTON &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/phi\/philadelphia-76ers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sixers<\/a> rookie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/5124612\/vj-edgecombe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VJ Edgecombe<\/a> wasted no time making his mark in the NBA, scoring 34 points in his debut to help Philadelphia rally to beat the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/bos\/boston-celtics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Celtics<\/a> 117-116 in their season opener Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>Edgecombe scored the most points in an NBA debut since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4142\/wilt-chamberlain\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wilt Chamberlain<\/a> had 43 on Oct. 24, 1959, and the third-most in a debut all-time. He also set the franchise scoring record in a debut, breaking Allen Iverson&#8217;s mark of 30.<\/p>\n<p>The rookie managed to stand out on a night teammate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4431678\/tyrese-maxey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyrese Maxey<\/a> scored a game-high 40 points. The 74 combined points by Edgecombe and Maxey were tied for the second-most by a duo in a season opener in NBA history, trailing only James Harden and Christian Wood&#8217;s 75 points in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>YearPlayerPoints1959Wilt Chamberlain431954Frank Selvy35Wed.V.J. Edgecombe341974John Drew321955Maurice Stokes32<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia led by four with 22 seconds left, but it was down to one when Edgecombe missed a pair of foul shots with 9.1 seconds to play. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4066354\/payton-pritchard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Payton Pritchard<\/a> had two shots for the winner and missed both.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3059318\/joel-embiid\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joel Embiid<\/a> played for the first time since February, scoring four points on 1-of-9 shooting. The 2023 NBA MVP and a two-time league scoring champion had six rebounds in 20 minutes as he returns after a 2024-25 season when he was limited to 19 games because of a sprained left foot, a sinus fracture and arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3917376\/jaylen-brown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaylen Brown<\/a> returned from a hamstring injury in the preseason finale to score 25 points. The 2024 NBA Finals MVP is expected to carry a heavier load this year with fellow All-Star <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4065648\/jayson-tatum\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jayson Tatum<\/a>, who watched the game from the bench in street clothes, recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3078576\/derrick-white\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Derrick White<\/a> scored 13 points of his 25 points in the third quarter, when the Celtics scored 16 straight points to turn a five-point deficit into an 11-point lead. The Celtics led 94-84 with nine minutes remaining before the Sixers scored eight straight points to make it close.<\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON &#8212; Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe wasted no time making his mark in the NBA, scoring 34 points&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-234009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}