Kenny Atkinson after the Cavs blow a 29-point lead: ‘They really imposed their will,’ and Nick Nurse calls it ‘a wild way to win a game’

Kenny Atkinson walked into Thursday night already carrying one loss from the summer. He walked out with a second one. Hours after he admitted that LeBron James choosing Philadelphia over Cleveland had left him “depressed” for a couple of days, his Cavaliers built a 69-45 halftime lead on James and the 76ers and then lost 114-106, scoring 37 points after the break.

Atkinson did not dress up what went wrong. “They upped their pressure and physicality. It was pretty clear,” he said after the game. “We did not handle it well.” He pointed to the turnovers first. “Then the possession game just tilts the other way, right? And it puts you in a hole.” Cleveland finished with 21 turnovers, about two-thirds of them after halftime, and scored 21 points in the third quarter and 16 in the fourth after putting up 35 and 34 in the first two.

‘The culprit of this one was our offense’

Asked whether the collapse started at the defensive end, Atkinson said no. “It was completely our offense,” he said. “Obviously the first half we’re making buckets, we’re getting our defense set, we’re getting back in transition, but when you start those live-ball turnovers, especially a team that’s as fast as they are…” He said he would not put it on the defense. “I think the culprit of this one was our offense, and again, not being able to handle the pressure and physicality.”

He said the mistakes were spread around the roster. “It wasn’t just one guy or just our guards,” he said. “Multiple people with multiple turnovers.” Donovan Mitchell, who had 20 of his 32 points in the first half, and James Harden, who had six turnovers, drew what Atkinson called “heavy denials” after halftime. When it was pointed out that Cleveland had assists on fewer than half of its baskets, he agreed that was part of it. “I felt it live. I felt like we tried to do it by ourselves,” Atkinson said. “When teams pressure like that, that’s the time you got to move it. Then you get them running around and chasing you. But if you try to beat them with the dribble, with one-on-one basketball, that’s just not the way to beat pressure. You can’t go into pressure, you gotta go away from pressure.” He said the film would give him “some really good clips to show the guys” on how to “hit singles, make the simple pass.”

He also said the Cavs never fully folded. After Philadelphia scored the first 11 points of the third quarter, Cleveland pushed its lead back to 14 and still led 90-82 after three. “They punched us and then I felt like we resisted in the third quarter,” he said. “But we’d have an untimely turnover. That’s usually what happened.” Philadelphia took its first lead with 6:54 left, and Mitchell missed two free throws with 1:19 to go and the Cavs down four.

‘One of 82’ and a ‘Game 7 atmosphere’

Atkinson framed the night as something to learn from rather than a warning sign. “Listen, it’s one of 82,” he said. “These are great experiences. This is how you build character, how you build resiliency, how you figure things out. So I look at it as a positive. We got a veteran team. We’ll bounce back and get ready for Brooklyn.” The second half, he said, “is like a playoff game, playoff atmosphere. We did some great things in the first half, played Cavs basketball. But then they really imposed their will. We resisted, but in the end we didn’t meet the challenge.”

He had praise for the building, too. “I say this with a lot of respect: it was typical Philly,” Atkinson said. “They booed them in the first half and then when they turned it around, they went bonkers. Philly fans, they call it like they see it.” He called it a Game 7 atmosphere and said it was good for his players to face it in the first game of the year. “Tip my hat to them and their crowd.”

The one clear bright spot for him was Peyton Watson, the forward Cleveland landed in a five-team sign-and-trade after James went elsewhere. Asked how much of the first-half defense came from Watson, Atkinson said, “A lot. Man, he’s so good.” He said Watson had “two or three rim protections” and “gives you defensive playmaking,” and added: “We’ll figure the offense out with him. We’ll figure where he fits, but his defensive mindset, his energy, how hard he plays, really, really impressed.” Watson had 8 points, two steals and a block, but also five turnovers, in 30 minutes.

Before the game: ‘You’re depressed, quite honestly’

The loss came on the night James played his first regular-season home game for the 76ers, and Atkinson was asked about him before tip-off. “We were anticipating and excited, and then you have that,” he said. “Having gone through free agency a lot, when you’re expecting something to happen and it doesn’t happen, that first day or two, you’re just like, you’re depressed, quite honestly. That’s the emotions of it.”

He said the way Cleveland moved on changed his outlook. “I loved how quickly we just switched gears and the push to get Peyton in the fold and everything we had to do to do that,” Atkinson said. “That was a complicated maneuver. But it’s kind of what Dan Gilbert and Koby and those guys, they’re aggressive. They don’t stand pat, and I love it. We take risks, we take swings. It was a great switch to what was a tough blow for us in the beginning.” James, who signed a two-year, $8 million deal with Philadelphia, said after the game that Cleveland had been a real option. “There was a lot of consideration,” he said. “That’s a team trying to build toward the championship.”

Nurse: ‘A wild way to win a game’

Nick Nurse sounded almost as surprised as everyone else. “That’s kind of a wild way to win a game, right?” he said, with two halves that did not resemble each other at all. He said his team was “just out of total sync to start the game,” with turnovers and “a lot of one pass, freeze,” and that every timeout he kept telling them they had to execute. “We just couldn’t get ourselves going for some reason, I don’t know, mentally,” he said.

“That’s kind of a wild way to win a game.” @Sixers head coach Nick Nurse reflects on Philadelphia’s historic 29-point comeback victory in their home opener! pic.twitter.com/ZTVPiXHAbG

— NBA TV (@NBATV) October 23, 2026

The fix started on defense. Nurse said the 76ers “switched a few things defensively that took out a lot of the stuff that was really hurting us,” mainly the roll man. “We were having a lot of trouble with roll coverage,” he said. “You got two big, strong, skilled guards coming down the lane with two big rollers at the rim. It’s not easy.” On offense, he said he had been “asking everybody to crack the paint in the first half” without success, and that stops in the second half let his team attack before Cleveland’s defense was set.

He singled out Maxey, who scored 32, for the work at both ends. “He seemed to take a level of confidence or maturity jump to me,” Nurse said, adding that without “a bit of arrogance,” Maxey “feels so sure of what he can do, which is a big step.” Defensively, he said, “he’s grown equally as much. He’s out there battling.”

Nurse said the arena was louder than he had heard it in his time in Philadelphia, both before tip-off and when Maxey hit a three in the third quarter. “That’s certainly as loud as I’ve heard it here,” he said. “When you come back from 29 down, that’s pretty fun as a fan.” He also said the 76ers “hit our targets almost exactly” on the minutes for James and Embiid, “so consider that a small W,” and that a lineup without both of them got enough stops to let him keep it on the floor longer than planned.

Both teams play again on Saturday. The 76ers, now 2-0, host the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Cavaliers host the Brooklyn Nets in their home opener. Both games tip at 7:30 p.m. ET, which is 2:30 a.m. Sunday in Cairo.