Tyrese Maxey can’t replicate his Game 5 magic, but inspires belief following an All-Star leap

On the Madison Square Garden floor Tuesday night, Tyrese Maxey flexed and hollered while marching down the sideline after propelling his 76ers to overtime of an improbable Game 5 victory. Two nights later, he spent the waning seconds of Game 6 watching the New York Knicks celebrate a first-round series victory on his home floor.

The Sixers’ point guard could not replicate his Maxey Miracle, finishing Game 6 with a series-low 17 points on 6-of-18 shooting, five rebounds, and five assists in a season-ending defeat.

This series, like this season, was a reminder why there is so much organizational belief that Maxey can continue to blossom far beyond his status as a first-time All-Star and winner of the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award.

Yet the discrepancy between Games 5 and 6 illustrated that more work still awaits the 23-year-old guard.

“If you’re going to be an ‘A’ player, you’ve got to do it most nights,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said. “[If] you’re going to average 30-plus [points] in this league, that means you’ve got to do it most nights. And doing it most nights means that’s a seven-days-a-week, 24-hours-a-day job taking care of yourself, developing your skills, watching the film.

“He’s awesome that way. Just needs a little bit of experience and time. I think he’ll just come back better and better.”

» READ MORE: The Sixers landed on wrong side, but they fought against the Knicks — and officials — in an epic Game 6

On Thursday, Maxey went 2-of-10 from the floor and scored five points through three quarters, meaning he did not help prevent the Sixers from falling into an early 22-point hole and was not a scoring factor in their massive rally to create another wildly entertaining second half.

But Maxey caught rhythm during a 12-point fourth quarter to keep his team within striking distance in the waning minutes. He converted a tough layup through traffic to cut the Knicks’ lead to 109-106 with less than two minutes to play, then tied the game at 111 with 34.2 seconds remaining when New York center Isaiah Hartenstein fouled him and was called for goaltending on another finish inside.

Overall, this series was another showcase opportunity for Maxey on a national stage. In Game 2, he amassed 35 points, 10 assists, and 9 rebounds while battling the flu. Then came his 46-point Game 5 masterpiece, including the seven-point flurry in the final seconds of regulation to force overtime and extend the series.

Those performances came following a 2023-24 regular season when he again put up career numbers, averaging 25.9 points and 6.2 assists per game and making it easy to forget that James Harden was on the Sixers’ roster on opening night.

Maxey earned the immediate confidence from first-year coach Nurse, who publicly encouraged his fourth-year guard to take 20 shots per game even while reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid began the season scoring at a mind-bogglingly historic pace.

And though Embiid’s two-month absence following knee surgery have hindered the Sixers’ outcome this season — they were on their way to a much higher playoff seed had that injury not occurred — it may have further accelerated Maxey’s development.

He spoke regularly this season about the variety of defenses he faced — some for the first time in his basketball life — as the opponent’s top defensive priority. Double-teams. Blitzes. Even the box-and-one. Though the Sixers’ offense struggled in Embiid’s absence, Maxey gained numerous reps in meshing the aggressive looking for his own shot while playmaking for teammates.

“It really made me a better player,” Maxey said. “Not even just a better player, but a better person, a better basketball mind. … That’s something that’s really going to help me [in the future]. I think it really helped me in these playoffs, too.

“I know I didn’t play particularly well tonight, but I was pretty prepared for everything that the defense threw at me, for the most part.”

Though one of Maxey’s premier skills is his blazing speed while attacking the basket, Nurse remains baffled that the guard does not yet get the foul calls that other star-caliber players typically receive. Yet if that is the case, the coach reiterated, “he’s got to go to something else,” such as slamming on the brakes or getting to a baseline fadeaway jumper.

“You just can’t keep going in there and getting knocked down and just realize that they’re never going to call it,” Nurse said, “You’ve got to [say], ‘OK, I’ve got to adjust the game a little bit [to] … whatever [the moves are] that we need to improve on for next season.’”

» READ MORE: Sixers’ season ends in 118-115 Game 6 loss to Knicks despite Joel Embiid’s 39 points

The good news: Maxey is a relentless, enthusiastic, and purposeful worker.

When he made only 29% of his three-pointers his college season at Kentucky, he spent the predraft process putting a higher arc on his shot that allowed him to launch and hit from the logo on Tuesday. Last summer, when he knew that Harden might not return to Philly, Maxey recruited childhood pals to mimic defenders and teammates to help him make “live” reads with the ball in his hands.

It’s fitting, though, that this season ended with Maxey sitting next to Embiid, after they morphed into one of the league’s most lethal two-man combinations. Maxey regularly reminds that Embiid was one of the first Sixers teammates to believe in him. And Embiid said Thursday that one of the reasons he came back from knee surgery was because he did not want to let Maxey down.

Maxey dipped his head and shook it as Embiid called his costar the face of the franchise, adding that he hopes Maxey earned All-NBA recognition this year and that he can someday become an MVP candidate.

His star turn in this memorable first-round series illustrated why. But Embiid, like his coach, also knows that Maxey has not yet reached his potential.

“He was amazing this year,” Embiid said. “One of the 10 best players in the world this year. … He’s gotten so much better. I think there’s another step he can even take.”