CAMDEN, N.J. — During the Philadelphia 76ers’ loss to the Boston Celtics in the season opener, it appeared that PJ Tucker and Tyrese Maxey were having a conversation late in the first half.
It looked as though Maxey had missed a defensive call and Tucker called him over to discuss what happened. Per Tucker, the conversation was helpful and the two will move on to the next one.
Maxey explained his side of the conversation with Tucker as he looks to learn from the situation.
“It’s great for us as a whole, not just myself,” said Maxey. “The play particularly, everything is kind of new to us because PJ’s been a lot of different teams. So the calls are different and, at the time, I asked him, the call that we used last year is different than the call that he’s used in the past. So the call I was listening for, waiting for, he didn’t say it. He said something else. He kind of explained it to me, ‘Just be ready and be up to the ball and we know on contact, we switch’.”
As Maxey mentioned, this is a fairly new team. There will be an adjustment period for the Sixers to get everybody on the same page. A conversation like Tuesday’s was needed for Philadelphia to move forward.
“It wasn’t a confrontation,” Maxey added. “Just a quick conversation between two competitive guys, and I really do appreciate him because he won a championship. He won one, and he knows what it takes to get there. I just go out there and try to listen and soak it all in.”
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