Tyrese Maxey scored 32 points and Joel Embiid added 24, including a jump shot with 6:54 left to play that gave the Sixers their first lead of the night, one they wouldn’t relinquish.
Former Celtics star Jaylen Brown, the Sixers’ other big off-season acquisition, scored 21 points and pulled down eight rebounds and four-time NBA champion James added 17 points, 10 rebounds and five assists to help the 76ers author their biggest comeback of the play-by-play era that started in 1996.
Cleveland, disappointed not to land hometown hero James after he announced he was leaving the Los Angeles Lakers after eight seasons, appeared to be on a mission to show him what he missed.
James won one of his four championships with Cleveland, and Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson admitted before the game that James’s decision to pursue a fifth crown with the 76ers left him “just depressed, honestly” for the first couple of days after the move was announced.
But he had reason to be pleased with the Cavaliers’ start to their first game of the new season.
Donovan Mitchell scored 22 of his 32 points in the first half as the Cavs seized control against a 76ers team struggling to find a rhythm and protect the ball.
Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid looked creaky, and James had five of the Sixers’ 15 first-half turnovers, which led to 22 Cavs points and provoked boos from Philly fans whose hopes of a title run have been raised by the arrivals of James and Brown.
The boos turned to raucous cheers as the re-energised 76ers opened the third quarter on an 11-0 run. They cut the lead to single digits on back-to-back baskets from Maxey that pulled them within 80-73.
The Cavs were struggling to regroup. Maxey reduced the deficit to two points with a running finger roll layup with 2:33 left in the third before Cleveland reeled off six straight points to take a 90-82 lead into the fourth quarter.
But the 76ers kept coming. They out-scored the Cavaliers 60-37 in the second half, clamping down defensively and giving up just two turnovers.
Evan Mobley scored 18 points for Cleveland but had just three in the second half. Jarrett Allen scored 14 but was held scoreless after the break. (AFP)