LeBron James has accomplished plenty throughout his legendary NBA career. He's already the league's all-time leading scorer. He's the first player in NBA history to play in 24 seasons and leads the league in games played, minutes played, All-NBA selections and All-Star selections.

One thing he hadn't done heading into the season? Overcome a deficit of 28 points or more. According to Joe Vardon of The Athletic, he came back from 27 points down once with the Miami Heat and once with the Los Angeles Lakers, but never more than that.

That changed Thursday night thanks to the Philadelphia 76ers' historic comeback against James' hometown Cleveland Cavaliers.

A history-making night

Early in their home opener, the Sixers looked exactly like a team that has barely played together. They were spraying the ball all over the floor, rarely got into the paint and played the isolation-heavy, "your-turn, my-turn" style that's typical of superteams in their early going.

The Cavaliers turned 14 first-half Sixers turnovers into a 22-3 advantage in points off turnovers, which helped them jump out to a 29-point lead shortly before halftime. The Sixers went into the locker room down 69-45 and could have just thrown in the towel then and there. Instead, they rattled off an 11-0 run to open up the third quarter to get themselves right back into the game.

The Cavaliers maintained their lead until midway through the fourth quarter, when a personal 7-0 run from Joel Embiid gave the Sixers their first lead since the opening minute of the game. Jaylen Brown then scored six straight points to give the Sixers some breathing room, and they managed to hold off the Cavaliers down the stretch with some timely buckets and defensive stops.

Not only was that the Sixers' biggest come-from-behind win in the past 30 years, but it was also a history-making night for LeBron.

After the game, Embiid told reporters that in previous years, the Sixers "would have just laid down and tried to move on to the next one." LeBron was particularly encouraged that this year's squad didn't fold despite the huge first-half deficit.

"It's great to know that deep down, we're not gonna have that quit mentality," he said after the game. "You never want to feel like that. You never want to look around and be like, 'OK, guys gave up.' It's great to know that we've got that. But you don't want to put yourself in too many of those situations."

Heading into the season, the Sixers looked like one of the NBA's highest-variance teams. Their collection of star talent is arguably unparalleled across the league, although they'd hardly be the first would-be superteam that failed to coalesce for any number of reasons.

The Sixers are only two games into their LeBron-and-Jaylen-Brown era, but they're 2-0, and both wins have come over the teams that were in the Eastern Conference Finals last year. They've overcome double-digit deficits in both games, too.

It's still far too early to anoint the Sixers as the new title favorites. After all, the Oklahoma City Thunder still exist, and they look like an absolute wagon right now despite losing Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe this offseason. (As always, Thunder general manager Sam Presti is a warlock.)

But the Sixers' ability to take punches from two of the East's best teams and punch back without folding may be one of the biggest takeaways from the first week of the 2026-27 NBA season.