SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A collection of 76ers raised their arms over their head in a combination of relief and joy as the final seconds ticked off.
After an inexplicable foul by Matisse Thybulle outside the arc with his team up three points with 2.2 seconds to play, the Kings’ Harrison Barnes stood at the free throw line. He missed the first attempt. He made the second. And after missing the third on purpose, Domantas Sabonis could not follow with the game-tying tip-in.
That dramatic sequence finished off the Sixers’ 129-127 win without Joel Embiid and James Harden Saturday night at the Golden1 Center. They completed a 5-0 road trip with one of their more impressive victories of the season.
The Sixers (30-16) began their five-game trek West with four consecutive wins, marking a successful trip, regardless of Saturday’s result. About 90 minutes before tipoff, coach Doc Rivers downplayed the potential pitfalls of a “getaway game” before a cross-country flight to Philly. And his team responded, coming back from a 21-point first-half deficit, taking the lead late in the third, and holding off a final surge against an upstart Kings team that had entered Saturday on its own six-game winning streak.
After Sacramento cut what had been a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit to 120-119 on a Kevin Huerter three-pointer and driving finish by De’Aaron Fox with two minutes to go, Georges Niang answered with a long ball, and Tyrese Maxey converted a driving finish to push their lead to 125-121. Maxey and De’Anthony Melton then went 4-for-4 from the free-throw line before Barnes’ trip to the stripe.
The Sixers built a 107-96 lead early in the fourth, when Niang three-pointer bounced in and Paul Reed followed his own spinning miss with a putback. The Kings (26-19) sliced that advantage to 109-108 on two Fox free throws with 7 minutes, 16 seconds left before Maxey responded with a finish off the glass and Shake Milton followed with a three-pointer.
Maxey scored 15 of his 32 in the third quarter that flipped the game in the Sixers’ favor, while Tobias Harris added 17 points, six assists, and five rebounds before fouling out with about three minutes to play. Montrezl Harrell had 17 points and seven rebounds while starting in place of Embiid, and Niang totaled 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and six rebounds off the bench.
The shorthanded Sixers looked overmatched in the first half, falling behind, 15-4, in the opening minutes and trailing, 73-52, with about two minutes remaining before the break. But they ended the first half on a 14-3 burst, including a deep three-pointer banked in by Danuel House Jr. at the buzzer. Then, a 13-point burst by Maxey in the third quarter’s initial four minutes, a three-pointer by Harris, and a finish though contact by Harrell tied the game, 86-86, about midway through the period.
A tough layup by Maxey gave the Sixers their first lead, 95-94, with about three minutes to play in the period, before Niang followed with his own finish inside. That advantage stretched to 100-94 on a House three-pointer at the 1:34 mark.
The Sixers next play two marquee home games, starting Wednesday against the Brooklyn Nets, who are 11/2 games back of the Sixers in the Eastern Conference standings, and next Saturday against the West-leading Denver Nuggets.
—Lineup tweaks
Maxey was excellent in his move back into the starting lineup in place of Harden, while Harrell was particularly impactful in the second half.
That first unit naturally put the ball in Maxey’s and Harris’ hands more frequently. Reed also got nine first-half minutes, while House entered late in the second frame. House — who had not played meaningful minutes since a New Year’s Eve win in Oklahoma City — also got significant second-half time.
First-half foul trouble for P.J. Tucker briefly pushed Rivers into using a three-guard lineup with Maxey, Melton, and Milton, before Niang reentered.
—Early defensive struggles
Without their defensive anchor in Embiid, the Sixers initially struggled to guard a Kings team that entered Saturday with the NBA’s second-most efficient offense (117.4 points per 100 possessions).
The Kings shot 60% in the first half, including making eight of their first 15 three-point shots.
That shifted in the third quarter, when the Sixers held Sacramento to 22 points. The Kings finished 54.8% from the floor and 13 of 33 from long range.
