James Harden-Less Sixers Showing Confidence After Close Opening Loss

While the James Harden saga continues to drag on, the 76ers have some basketball games to play.

It all started Thursday night, when they dropped a hard-fought decision to Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks on the road, 118-117.

That’s actually not so bad, considering everything. Reigning league MVP Joel Embiid was still very good. So were Tyrese Maxey (31 points) and Tobias Harris. And De’Anthony Melton did a solid job filling in for Harden.

It also marked the debut of coach Nick Nurse with the Sixers after five years with the Raptors. (Nurse and Philadelphia visit Toronto on Saturday.)

“Well, I thought we gave a great effort, right?” Nurse said, via Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire. “We were playing extremely hard. Thought we took a huge run kind of Haymaker from them in the first half on the road and we were able to get back together and get going a little bit. We did some really good things.”

One thing that seems certain — the Harden situation isn’t likely to calm down anytime soon. He was kept off the team flight to Milwaukee and there’s no telling if the Sixers will play him at all, given everything that’s transpired since his trade demand in June. And the one team that has an interest, the Clippers, has reportedly halted trade talks for the time being.

But hey, it looks like the Sixers just might be OK in spite of it all.

“First game of the season, I think we’re gonna be fine.,” Embiid said. “I like a lot of the stuff that we were doing. We got some bad calls our way towards the end. … We need to be better. We’re gonna be better.”