For the Philadelphia 76ers to have any chance to win without Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey must be great. For the most part, he has been throughout his fourth season in the league.
However, the first-time All-Star has had a tough start to the four-game road trip, and coach Nick Nurse had to get him going in Friday’s 101-94 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
After a 3-for-13 performance in the loss in Phoenix to start the trip, Maxey shot just 2-for-7 in the first half against Los Angeles for five points. The Lakers did a terrific job of walling him off and blitzing him. Nurse had a message for him at halftime to get him going a bit.
“I told him I wanted him to get back to more — it looked like great advice because I asked him to get back into some more race it at them, pull back 3s,” Nurse told reporters after the loss. “Like his first possession of the second half, he raced in, pulled back hit it. It ended up being his only 3-point make of the night.”
In the second half, Maxey was much more aggressive. He shot 8-for-19 and had 22 points after halftime. He made the one 3-pointer, but that type of production is what Nurse is looking for to help the Sixers succeed.
“I just, again, I just kept telling him ‘You got to get the ball, find the ball, find space. You gotta keep attacking. Like you’ve got to keep attacking. You are our best option,’ right?” Nurse added. “So that’s what he did.”
Overall, the Sixers fought hard to steal one in LA. They forced the Lakers into 21 turnovers, held the Lakers to 43.8% shooting, and held LeBron James in check for most of the night before he got going in the fourth.
The issue is the Sixers shot only 34.4% from the floor and 8-for-37 from deep. It also didn’t help that Maxey wasn’t able to get going early.
“I say as long as we play our guts out, I can live with it,” Nurse continued. “I’m having a hard time right now living with it, right? Because I just felt like we really did play so hard and executed so well on defense tonight and I thought we executed on offense, too. We just couldn’t get it in the basket.”
The Sixers didn’t get discouraged and gave themselves a chance. Maxey had a steal late and if he made a corner 3, Philadelphia would have been within two with roughly 15 seconds left.
“I think yeah, you certainly want to — I told the guys I give you a lot of credit,” Nurse finished. “You just kept playing and kept playing and kept playing. Even at the end, we stole the ball. If Tyrese makes that corner three it’s a two-point game with 30 seconds to go. Like we still were there, right?”
The Sixers face the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday to continue the road trip.
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