Sixers

Biggest Positive Right Now is How Good the Sixers Have Been in the Fourth Quarter

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Oct 29th, 2026 · 9:48 AM EDT

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Small sample size, but the Sixers are one of the best fourth quarter teams through this early part of the NBA season.

Your eyeballs are good enough to confirm, as you watched the team rebound from a hideous third quarter on Wednesday night to outscore the Pacers 39 to 21 in the final frame and walk away with a 114 to 109 road win.

Here are some stats to chew on:

• The Sixers lead the NBA with 36 clutch points. Those are points scored in the final five minutes of a game, when the score is plus or minus five points. Basically, they score a lot in close, non-blowout games late in the fourth.
• They’re averaging 29.6 points in the fourth quarter, which is tied for sixth-most.
• The fourth quarter point differential is 6.2, which is second, behind Toronto.
• Fourth quarter defensive rating is 94.5, again second to Toronto. It’s 103.6 overall.
• Fourth quarter offensive rating is 116.5, 7th-best. If you combine all four quarters, their ORAT is 106.6 and 26th out of 30 teams.
• Fourth quarter net rating is 22.0, second behind the Pistons.

It’s hard to find a fourth quarter stat in which the Sixers aren’t top 8, at the very least. They have positive differentials in field goal makes, assists, blocks, steals, turnovers, and rebounds. The only negative differential on a basic stat is a -1 offensive rebounding number, which isn’t a big deal.

A lot of this is led individually by Tyrese Maxey, who has 55 fourth quarter points in five games. That’s 15 more points than the next best player on the list. 14 of those 55 points are clutch points. Maxey is shooting 51.5% in the fourth quarter on 6.6 attempts per game, and while his three-point percentage is only 27.3 in the fourth, he’s getting to the line 4.2 times on average and hitting 85.7% of those shots.

The takeaway is that he can be even better than he already is in these periods.

And it’s been interesting to watch the Sixers’ fourth quarter offense, those half court possessions late in games. Tyrese Maxey is a pick and roll ball handler. It’s all on him. He can call up a screener of his choice, dump the ball off, hunt a switch, or simply turn the corner, get downhill, and attack the rim. In the case of this sequence last night, he uses a LeBron ball screen to get a switch and iso and does the rest himself:

Tyrese Maxey 😦

You can tell the crossover was filthy by the crowd reaction pic.twitter.com/OFqFV4br9j

— Underdog (@Underdog) October 29, 2026

This is going to be the Sixers’ closing offense probably for the entire season. High middle pick and roll with Maxey. They’ll put two guys in the corner, one guy in the dunker spot, and bring up the fourth as a screener. It’s worked well so far and it ain’t broke, so it doesn’t require fixing.