The NBA is filled with some of the best athletes in the world and it is exciting to go up and battle in these games as it gets the competitive juices going.
Philadelphia 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey was able to experience this on Saturday in the team’s 118-111 road loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. Maxey had himself an impressive performance going for 28 points on 9-for-17 shooting while knocking down all nine of his free throws with nine assists and zero turnovers while battling against some elite competitors.
Those elite players are the Blazers star duo of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. Lillard had 39 points for Portland while McCollum had 18 so there were more lessons for the young Maxey to learn from, especially from Lillard.
“It’s great,” said Maxey. “It’s basketball so it’s a competition. You want to go against the best of the best and you want to stop the best of the best. You got to go through them to be who you want to be. He’s a great player, C.J. is a great player, the coaching staff does a great job of getting them into actions to get them to score. They are tough covers and it was cool. It was fun. Hats off to them.”
Maxey is continuing to grow as a player so now, he has to be able to take these lessons and add to his game. Lillard and the Blazers were the more physical team from the jump on Saturday and the Sixers have to understand that they can’t let teams push them around.
“They were more physical than us to start the game,” Maxey added. “Coach Doc [Rivers] was talking about it at halftime. They pushed us out of our spots, they took us out of our actions. We can’t let that happen again.”
The Sixers will now travel to northern California to take on the Sacramento Kings on Monday to continue their 6-game road trip.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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