Paul George made his first appearance for the Philadelphia 76ers in a preseason defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Although the Sixers lost 121-111 and were outscored during the portion of the game that featured starters and key bench players, George looked great in his first time playing for Philly.

PG-8 dazzled with his ability to shoot threes off the bounce and set the table for the offense. In 26 minutes across the first three quarters, he scored a game-high 23 points and also recorded six rebounds and two assists while shooting 8-15 from the field and 4-9 from deep.

Joel Embiid was inactive for this game but Tyrese Maxey got the chance to play with his new co-star for the first time. The All-Star guard was pleased with what he saw.

“Good at basketball. He's pretty good,” Maxey told reporters. “He's pretty good, was comfortable and did a good job.”

Maxey, who had 21 points on 7-14 shooting in 26 minutes, wanted to make George's transition to his new team as seamless as he could. But George was able to do some of that himself, taking the ball up and running the offense from time to time.

“My goal today was to try to see how I can make him as comfortable as possible, at least in the first half, call stuff for him,” Maxey said. “He kinda just got things in a flow, though. [I] got to sit back, watch that and see how I can fit in and how I can make sure that he fits in and other guys around that. It was pretty good.”

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Paul George makes good first impression in 76ers preseason debut 

Nick Nurse also said that George looked good. The first thing he thought when George landed in Philly was how good of a scorer he was. That skill was fully on display in the exhibition match in Iowa.

“I thought he was moving great, created some shots on his own, et cetera,” the 76ers head coach told reporters. “Thought he competed — he was on the glass. He would have had a lot more rebounds if [Andre Drummond] wasn’t grabbing a lot of those but those two guys were up there on the glass, going at it. Certainly had a good game and looked really good out there.”

Nurse said he wants to make things easier for George, setting him up for shots rather than making him do it himself all the time. While some of that was because of the team's “clunkiness and newness,” as Nurse put it, it was also because the superstar big man wasn’t in action. With Embiid in the fold, George should feast on catch-and-shoot looks.

After losing to the Timberwolves on Friday, the Sixers are back in action on Saturday against the Boston Celtics. It wouldn’t be surprising for George and other starters to sit out the back-to-back. Still, Philly will have plenty of chances to get George acclimated.