Sixers flip the switch late, bury Wolves 115-103

The Wolves hang around for a while, but Philadelphia takes the game away with a brutal third-quarter swing and never gives it back. What starts as a tight, 13-lead-change battle turns into a Sixers showcase once the home team finds its rhythm in the middle of the game. By the time Kelly Oubre Jr. is drilling back-to-back threes in the final two minutes, the building already knows the outcome: Philadelphia has the Wolves on the ropes, 115-103.

Minnesota actually sets the tone early enough to make this interesting. The first quarter stays tight, and the Wolves briefly surge in the second behind Bones Hyland’s shot-making. His 27-foot step-back three caps an 8-0 run and flips a 33-33 game into a 41-33 Minnesota cushion. That’s the kind of burst that can change the feel of a road game, and for a moment the Wolves look like the sharper, more aggressive team. But Philadelphia answers just enough to stay within striking distance, and that matters because the Sixers are about to hit a gear Minnesota can’t match.

The turning point arrives in the third. Down 57-50, Philadelphia starts carving into the lead with Tyrese Maxey pushing the pace and Joel Embiid orchestrating from the middle. Maxey’s 9-foot driving floater cuts it to 55-50, then another Sixers run follows as Embiid keeps finding seams in the defense. The biggest burst comes when Maxey knocks down a 17-foot jumper off an Embiid assist to cap an 11-0 run and turn a 50-57 deficit into a 60-57 lead. From there, the game changes shape fast. Philadelphia keeps squeezing Minnesota’s half-court offense, and by the end of the third the Sixers have not only erased the deficit — they’ve built a 12-point advantage at 83-71.

That’s where the game gets decided. Paul George starts punishing the Wolves in the fourth, especially from deep. His 26-foot pull-up three is the centerpiece of an 11-0 home run that stretches an 85-78 game to 96-79 and effectively breaks Minnesota’s resistance. The Sixers’ spacing opens up, George finishes with 23 points, four steals, and steady two-way control, and Philadelphia keeps winning the possession battle. Minnesota makes a few isolated pushes — Julius Randle’s steal and running dunk at 2:55, then a couple of paint finishes to stay alive — but every time the Wolves poke at the margin, the Sixers answer with a shot or a defensive play.

That closing stretch tells the story of the night. Randle scores 21 and battles on the glass, Bones Hyland gets Minnesota 21 points off the bench, and Rudy Gobert cleans the defensive glass with 16 rebounds, but the Wolves never find enough efficiency from the perimeter or enough stops when the game starts tilting. Philadelphia, meanwhile, gets a balanced offensive punch: Maxey posts 21 points and eight assists, Oubre Jr. matches him with 21 and knocks down the back-breaking late threes, and Embiid fills the box score with 19 points, 13 rebounds, and seven assists while directing traffic for the offense. Once George steals it at 1:01 and Oubre buries the final 26-footer at 0:54.8, that’s the exclamation point on a game Philadelphia controlled for the final 20 minutes.

For the Sixers, this is the kind of win that reinforces their ceiling: multiple creators, a dominant interior hub, and enough length and shot-making to turn a competitive game into a comfortable finish. For Minnesota, it’s a reminder that playing from behind against elite talent is dangerous, especially when the opponent can rip off a run in a single quarter and never let you fully recover. Philadelphia walks away with the cleaner takeaway, the bigger momentum swing, and a matchup that showed exactly how dangerous this team can be when the stars are all connected.