Tyrese Maxey is back from illness, and pleased with how the Sixers played without him

Tyrese Maxey typically is “super animated” whenever a health issue has forced him to watch his team play on television.

But when the 76ers’ star guard tried to express such outward enthusiasm while ill at home for Friday’s victory over the Indiana Pacers and Sunday’s three-point loss to Atlanta Hawks, he rapidly fatigued.

“The more I yelled and screamed, the more I got tired,” Maxey said following Wednesday’s practice. “And it was, like, I can’t do that. I couldn’t stand up, really. So I’m basically just sitting there, watching the game, like, throwing my arms like this.”

The good news for the 14-11 Sixers: Maxey was back on the court with his teammates Wednesday, following an individual session the previous day. Perhaps even more encouraging to him and coach Nick Nurse was how the Sixers played without Maxey, who entered Wednesday ranked third in the NBA in scoring (31.5 points per game) and leading the league in minutes (39.9 per game).

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“When I said [before the season that] I wanted stuff to look the same,” Maxey said, “I just wanted us to go out there and compete every single night. I don’t want it to look like, ‘Oh, this guy’s out. That guy’s out. So we’re just going to lay down, and the other team’s going to beat us.’

“I think we’ve kind of created that standard and done a good job of it. It’s kind of coming to light, and now we’ve got to keep doing it.”

Nurse acknowledged Wednesday that his “fears were really high” entering last weekend’s games without Maxey. But the coach was particularly pleased with how rookie VJ Edgecombe handled lead guard duties, with seven assists against two turnovers across those two games while surpassing 20 points in each contest. The coach also liked how his team broke defensive pressure, and that he was able to get a look at a variety of lineup combinations.

Maxey, meanwhile, was thrilled that former MVP Joel Embiid “put on a clinic” in his 39-point outburst against the Pacers.

“When he was about to do the … you know,” said Maxey, referring to Embiid’s DX chop celebration. “I was about to say, ‘If I tweet that, will I get fined? If I tweeted a GIF?’ But I just stayed away from all that.”

Though Maxey said he felt “way better” while back in the facility Wednesday, Nurse believed the star guard “looked like he’s been off for a little bit.” And some reacclimation was necessary after the Sixers added to their schematic package during last week’s four-day layoff between games while Maxey was away. The point guard said he noticed those changes while reviewing practice film and while watching the games live.

“The biggest thing that I took from [those games] is that we can be really good,” he said. “I mean, we can. It’s possible. We have those opportunities. We have those chances.

“We’ve just got to keep coming together, keep doing a good job of building every single day, and staying healthy.”

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Another positive injury development: Kelly Oubre Jr. (left knee) and Trendon Watford (left thigh) have progressed to individual on-court work, the team said Wednesday. There is no timetable for either player to return for game action, though Watford said Wednesday he is “close” to that.

“I feel like I had a pretty good groove going while I was playing,” said Watford, who averaged 8.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 3.6 assists in 14 games after missing the start of the season with a hamstring issue. “[I was] starting to string it together a little bit. It’s unfortunate what happened, but it could always be worse.

“Just sitting back and keeping that perspective, and just trying to attack the rehab the same every day.”

A potential byproduct of the Sixers getting healthier is diminishing minutes for players further down the rotation. That includes Justin Edwards and Adem Bona, who, after playing more sporadically in recent games, were assigned to the G League’s Delaware Blue Coats for Tuesday’s win at the Capital City Go-Go.

Edwards scored 37 points on 13-of-21 shooting and added four rebounds and six steals in 40 minutes. Bona totaled 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting, four rebounds, three assists, and three blocks in 32 minutes.

“That was a great opportunity for both of them,” Nurse said. “Went down there and embraced it and played great. My thing was I told them both, ‘Do your thing. Play hard. Do the things that you can do. Play to your strengths.’”

Edwards is 0-for-10 from the floor in his last three NBA games, and only logged 8 minutes, 51 seconds on Sunday in Atlanta. Bona, meanwhile, has not played in the Sixers’ past three games, with Embiid becoming more consistently available and Andre Drummond taking hold of the backup center spot. The Sixers also recently used a similar get-right strategy with second-year guard Jared McCain, who went 0-for-9 from the floor in his first four games upon returning from missing nearly a calendar year following knee and thumb surgeries.

Nurse said Edwards and Bona likely will see the floor in the Sixers’ upcoming back-to-back on Friday at the New York Knicks and on Saturday against the Dallas Mavericks. But, as the season rolls on, the coach acknowledged that both second-year players will probably have “long moments where they don’t hit the floor much.”

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“So balancing growing … at a young age, with learning how to play,” Nurse said. “Playing the right way, keeping your confidence up, keeping your conditioning up.”

End-of-game scenarios have been a focus during the Sixers’ two lighter weeks, per Nurse.

That is understandable, given they entered Wednesday tied for second in the NBA with 18 “clutch” games played, which occurs when the score is five points or fewer with five minutes remaining in regulation. The Sixers were 1-1 in such situations last weekend, pulling away from the Pacers in the final minutes and then losing to the Hawks in a game that came down to the last possession.

After reevaluating the end of that Atlanta game — which included a chaotic final-minute sequence with two missed three-pointers, an offensive rebound, taking too long to foul, and a controversial no-call by the officials — Nurse described Quentin Grimes’ missed three-point leaner at the buzzer as “really good.” A detail worth mentioning: veteran Kyle Lowry entered the game to inbound the ball with 1.5 seconds remaining, a role once held by Nico Batum during the 2023-24 season.

Overall, Nurse has called his team’s crunch-time play so far this season “maybe better than I expected, and certainly better than in the past.” The Sixers were 18-18 in clutch games in 2023-24, which ranked 14th in the league in winning percentage, and 15-21 during the dreadful 2024-25 season.

“We’ve made some clutch stops to get us in these positions,” Nurse said. “We’re doing OK. I want to keep building on that stuff. … Always want to get better. Always get greedy on that kind of stuff.”