Tyrese Maxey ‘slayed the dragon’ as Sixers win first road Game 7 in 44 years
It's been 13 years, but Philadelphia finally has a true point guard again, thanks to the hard work and development of the best sidekick Joel Embiid has ever had.
BOSTON — The mob in the hallway outside the Sixers’ locker room, collectively worth billions, felt like a million bucks.
“We slayed the dragon! In Boston!”
“We finally won a [bleeping] Game 7! In Boston! About [bleeping] time!”
It was hard to tell just who was saying what, but the gang was all there: managing partner Josh Harris, president Daryl Morey, GM Elton Brand, significant others, random others. It was a scene of euphoria acted out by some of the principals in the Sixers-Celtics drama that had been tragedy for Philadelphia.
» READ MORE: Vintage Joel Embiid, Maxey madness, and more from an improbable Game 7 victory
It was the 23rd time the teams have faced each other in the playoffs, the most in NBA history. Boston won 15, including the last six. That means that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown eliminated Joel Embiid-led Sixers teams three times: in 2018; 2020; and, most painfully, 2023, when Embiid, James Harden, and the Sixers collapsed in Games 6 and 7.
Embiid didn’t have a true point guard in those series. He never has, really; Ben Simmons certainly wasn’t, and we’re still not sure what Harden really is.
Embiid has one now.
Tyrese Maxey scored 30 points on just 18 shots. He dealt seven assists with just one turnover. He pulled down 11 rebounds at 6-foot-2.
When the Celtics cut an 18-point third-quarter lead to one with 3 minutes, 48 seconds to play, Maxey went on a personal 8-0 run and salted the game away. The Sixers won, 109-100, and advanced to face the Knicks. The second round begins Monday night in New York.
Bright lights and Big Apple, get ready for the NBA’s latest superstar.
“You know, that was his moment,” said Sixers forward Paul George. “You can talk about Joel getting us there, but it was Ty’s moment to put the lid on it. And he did that.”
Maxey has turned into one of the game’s best closers. This season, he ranked sixth in clutch points per game among players with 20 qualifying games. Last year, he ranked second.
“I knew I would need to step up and make plays down the stretch for us to win the game,” Maxey said.
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On the TD Bank Arena floor he shared with Embiid, who had 34 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists, as well as Brown, who dropped 33, Maxey was, by far, the best basketball player. His aplomb in the game’s first 44 minutes and his explosion in the last four — well, that’s just what superstars do.
It’s not just the Embiid Show anymore.
“The steps that Tyrese has taken … it means a lot,” Embiid said. “You can’t win alone.”
You can’t win without the ball, either.
» READ MORE: Joel Embiid and the Sixers finally have their signature playoff moment | David Murphy
Maxey’s most astonishing stat:
In the last six games he has six turnovers and 38 assists. Six.
He’s become so much more than just a scorer.
He’s the first true point guard in the organization since former GM Sam Hinkie in 2013 traded away Jrue Holiday — All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and two-time NBA champion. Maxey was drafted 21st overall in 2020 in the dust of the rubble of The Process, Hinkie’s catastrophic rebuilding strategy, and Maxey has built himself into the sort of point guard who can win playoff series against all comers.
The next comers: The Knicks, who bounced the Sixers in the first round in 2024.
Maxey has evolved since then. How so?
“My playmaking and my defense, those two things, for sure,” he said. “The game has slowed down for me a little bit. I’m able to make certain passes that I wasn’t able to make a few years ago. And, defensively, I think I finally learned how to be physical enough and actually play the physical defense.”
No one will ever mistake Maxey for Holiday, a generational defender with a Mensa basketball IQ, but compared to the reckless, error-prone player who shot 40.3% in the 2023 series here, Maxey’s evolution has been everything.
He used to just be a gunner. Now, he involves not only Embiid but also George and rookie VJ Edgecombe, who scored 23. Maxey’s 12 points in the third period helped build the lead the Sixers eventually squandered. He’s good enough not to just turn it on whenever he wants to.
Credit Embiid, who’d busted guys one-on-one and scored through contact and beaten double-teams and carried the Sixers that far as Maxery cruised.
“I played through the flow in the first half,” Maxey said. “The first thing he said to me in the third quarter was, ‘I need you to go.’”
He went. He went off.
“That’s fine with me,” Maxey said. “It’s a growth. I had to learn when to be aggressive, when not to be aggressive.”
As all true point guards must.
» READ MORE: Vintage Joel Embiid, Maxey madness, and more from an improbable Game 7 victory
The Celtics lacked star wing Jayson Tatum, who missed the game with a knee injury suffered in Game 6, but they’d beaten the Celtics in the last two games when they had Tatum, both home and away. Further, the Celtics earned the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference largely without Tatum, who missed most of the season recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon.
The Celtics still were a very good team playing at home, in front of perhaps the most rabid basketball fans in the league, facing a historically challenging rival.
Maxey seemed to have little appreciation for the gravity of the moment.
The Sixers hadn’t won a Game 7 since 2001, when Allen Iverson & Co. did it twice. They hadn’t won a Game 7 on the road since 1982, when Julius Erving & Co. did it here. They’d won none of the 18 previous series in which they’d trailed, three games to one, and Boston had lost none of the 32 previous series in which they’d led by that margin.
Sixers coach Nick Nurse recently was asked about how the pieces of this team have, after a deluge of injuries and illnesses over the past two years, coalesced into something potent and powerful. His answer featured the development of a real point guard.
“I think a lot of dominoes had to fall, right?” Nurse said. “I think Tyrese has improved more over the last couple of years. Has been amazing.”
Dragon slayers always are.
