Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey lift Sixers to 2-0 series lead

Key details on last night's game:

  • Sixers use dominant, 20-5 third quarter run to take 2-0 series lead.
  • Maxey's 33 points, incredible shooting lead the way in win.
  • 18-0 edge in second-chance points help Sixers overcome turnover issues.

Before the game Brooklyn head coach Jacque Vaughn pushed back on the idea that his team needed to make adjustments from what they did, or attempted to do, in Game 1.

"I think the biggest adjustment for us is to do some of the things that we decided to do in Game 1, but do them better," Vaughn said before the game. "So that will be a great adjustment for us. I think that's where it starts."

After a disastrous first half, which saw them commit 12 costly turnovers as they struggled offensively for the first time this series, the Sixers needed to take Vaughn's advice. They didn't need to reinvent the wheel to solve Brooklyn's defensive scheme, they just needed to get back to doing what they did in Game 1.

"I thought we wasted the whole first half, literally just running random, not trusting our sets," Rivers said after the game. "That was a hard game, because we got outside of ourselves in the first half. We were forcing it. We were trying -- nothing selfish -- but we were trying to score, all of us [individually]."

For most of the third quarter the Sixers looked like a completely different team. Or, more specifically, they looked like a different team than the one that played in the first half. They instead looked almost exactly like the one that showed up and controlled Game 1 in impressive fashion.

But it took a false start to get them there.