Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Philadelphia -12½ over Milwaukee

7:30 PM EST. Do not be afraid to spot big numbers in the NBA. Scoring is through the roof in this league, blowouts are a nightly occurrence, and 12½ is the new 7½.  Philadelphia is 2-0, and both wins were comebacks — down 10 in the second quarter at Madison Square Garden to spoil the Knicks' banner ceremony, 106-100, then down 29 in the first half on Thursday against Cleveland before storming all the way back to win 114-106. Tyrese Maxey is averaging 30 points a night, Joel Embiid added 24 against the Cavs, Jaylen Brown chipped in 21, and LeBron James had 17 points and 10 rebounds in his first game in front of Philadelphia fans as a Sixer. This team has four stars who can take over a game, and so far, all four have.

Milwaukee, meanwhile, is 0-2 in the post-Giannis era, and the problem is not scoring — it is stopping anybody. The Bucks have given up an average of 130 points a game, losing to Washington and then 132-125 to Chicago on Friday night despite Tyler Herro's 34 points, Jaime Jaquez's 19 points and 11 rebounds, and Kyle Kuzma's 14 and 9. They put points on the board and still lose, because defensively they have no answers, and now they walk into Philadelphia on the second night of a back-to-back to face a team that just erased a 29-point deficit in its own building. That is the recipe for a game that gets away early and never comes back.

The honest counters are the availability questions. Embiid has said he will play in only one of Philadelphia's two games this weekend, and it is not clear which one, while LeBron is questionable with lower back and sciatica management. If either one sits, the load falls heavier on Maxey — but Maxey has been, in Nick Nurse's words, very impressive, playing with a level of confidence and maturity that is a clear step up from last season's career-high 28.3 a night. Even short-handed, the Sixers are deeper, better, and at home against a winless team that cannot defend and is running on no rest. In a league where 12½ disappears in one bad quarter, we'll lay it with the team that knows how to come back from anything.

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