Tyrese Maxey Has A Chance To Write A New Playoff Chapter
If there has ever been a young athlete that captured the imagination and wild fan support in Philadelphia near the top of the list has to be Tyrese Maxey! The million dollar smile with the relentless hustle and speedy game, Tyrese exemplifies almost everything we love in our athletes.
To really cement a legacy and to show that you are deserving of a huge max contract this summer it is essential that he does change one narrative. It’s time for Maxey to be the Robin to the Embiid Batman this time around. The last two Springs James Harden was in Philly and that gave Tyrese cover for his less than sterling playoff performances. Now it’s his moment to shine and boy is it needed!
His playoff history is clearly a step backward from his regular-season success
Tyrese in 35 career playoff games averages 15 points a game. Thats not a huge drop off but he averages around 21 ppg in the regular season in his career. In his 11 playoff games in the 2023 playoffs vs Brooklyn and Boston Tyrese scored below his season average in six of those games.
In his 12 playoff games in the 2022 playoffs vs Toronto and Miami he scored below his season average in six of those games.
The Play-in Game vs Miami did the narrative no favors
Eric Spoelstra seems to have a way of making Maxey disappear. As the 76ers tried to play their way into the playoffs the Miami Heat had a strategy that once again caused Tyrese to struggle. Maxey attempted just six three pointers and only got one to splash down.
The Miami zone defense seemed to either confuse him or frustrate him. He had uncharacteristic turnovers and scored only 19 points. That was around 7 points below his seasonal average.
What needs to change for Tyrese Maxey?
Tyrese only had 12 games in 70 starts in 2023-24 where he scored less than 19 points. The Miami performance was not his shining moment. He shouldn’t be the only target of critique. When Embiid and Maxey only combine for 42 points you can’t expect to win many playoff games.
The Knicks stand in their way
The 76ers are -122 favorites to defeat the Knicks in their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series. For a team that hasn’t been out of the second round since 2001 this is a very difficult road to navigate. I’m expecting we finally will get to see Playoff Tyrese take the stage.
76ers in 6
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6 Things Sixers President Daryl Morey Said When He Joined Our Show
Tyrese Maxey Passed All Tests With Flying Colors
“One big question coming in was Tyrese Maxey. We knew he was an amazing player, but we thought we’d get a better sense of where he’s at with, some of the other roster changes. And we got an even better sense of how he can play as as one of the primary guys when Joel was out. He passed everything with flying colors.”
Boston Is The Best Team He Has Seen Since The Warriors
“Boston’s a juggernaut. I mean, they’re the best team I’ve seen since the Golden State teams we went against when I was in the West. I think the other teams all have question marks. We are one of those teams. We need we need health. We need we need a few things to go our way. The Celtics don’t need a lot to go their way.
We feel very good about matching up with everybody where, you know, in terms of the Celtics that we do match up with them. More than most teams we think we match up pretty well. But they’re playing at a at a really high level. We’ve got to play them eventually if we’re going to reach our goal of winning the championship. So yeah, it’ll be it’ll be a challenge whenever we face them.”
Sees His Team As One of The Favorites
“I think we’re in this weird position of having some significant challenges during the regular season. But we feel like we’re one of the favorites. I don’t see three or 4 or 5 teams better than us. When when we have everyone, which, unfortunately, we don’t have everyone. But we have the horses. We feel like we go in as one of the favorites, but we’ve got the added challenge. It’s pretty rare you have to win one more one-and-done, to maintain being the favorite right up front.”
His Team Is On An Upswing
“In the past few years there was some negative news right before the playoffs. Now we’re on an upswing.
We’ve got Maxey on his ascendency. We have Joel still at this peak. When he’s when he’s been out there this year he’s been better than even his MVP year. We’ve got a mix of veterans that have won tons and tons of playoff games, some of them against me like Batum and Lowry. We’ve got guys who are, showing the league what they can do like the Oubres of the world.
We’ve got an upward trend. We’ve given ourselves an extra battle with Miami. But I feel like going into the playoffs, we have everyone playing on a really nice upward trend.”
His Ideas For the NBA Playoffs Format
“I think they should add more things to make the regular season meaningful. I think the top two teams should get byes. I think there should be even more of a Play-In tournament from seed 5 on. Home court should only go to the top few teams.
Obviously, it hurt us this season. But I do think it’s the right direction for the league. We generally have the least interesting playoffs of any of the major professional teams in terms of the better teams beating the worst teams. So adding drama like this is a positive for the league, even if it’s not positive for the Sixers this year.”
It Was Torture For Him Score Board Watching on Sunday
“Generally just torture. I like the planning part of the job that’s, you know, let’s figure out how to best way to win the championship. Because during the game, especially when it’s, you know, waiting for results from other teams, there’s really a lack of control there. It’s really mostly torture.
Especially when a game going your way is like 8-to 10-point lead and then it flips on you. That’s the part of the job I probably would take out if I could. I wish it could be just the methodical planning without a bunch of randomness if we could avoid it.”
