Tyrese Maxey leads Sixers to win over Bulls despite Paul George injury

Tyrese Maxey scored 31 points to lead the Sixers to a 109-97 win over the Bulls, shrugging off a Paul George pinky injury to steal a victory in the second half of a back-to-back.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— If Tyrese Maxey has rediscovered his shooting ability, the season may be saved after all. His ability to break defenses with the outside shot is essential for this team to be what everyone hoped it could be, and over the last two nights, The Old Maxey™ is back on your television screen.

It certainly seems to help that Maxey is getting quite a few opportunities to operate as an off-ball player. The Sixers are running designed looks for Maxey as a catch-and-shoot player, betting on his movement shooting to propel him back toward career averages. Between flare screens, pindowns, and some basic swing passes out of looks for other players, they can get him a steady diet of quality (or quality-ish) three-point shots. Get him going on the easy ones, and the tough ones won’t feel so difficult anymore.

He had a spellbinding flurry in the first quarter, scoring 13 points on a wide variety of looks — a movement three from an inbound pass, a beautiful scoop layup going right, a sidestep three, a pull-up three, and then one last trip to the rim to cap it all off. Every piece of his game was there, pace, touch, and skill melting into a beautiful basketball sundae. The only shame was that it had to end because it felt for a moment that he might just score on every possession the rest of the game.

The Sixers needed aggressive Maxey in the first quarter because it took quite a while for the rest of his teammates to get going. When he was done with that run, he had more points than the rest of his teammates combined, and he was Philly’s pace setter by a comfortable margin in the first half with an even 20. Chicago had no idea what to do with him, and I don’t think there were good answers, frankly, as he got into a midrange pull-up or two that kept them honest on his trips to the basket.

Perhaps this is the recipe the Sixers need to survive the Embiid-less games, with Maxey taking the big man’s role as the dominant first-half force as everybody else gets up to speed. It has certainly worked the last two nights to get much-needed wins for Philly, even if he still wants to try to get his teammates going before hunting his own shots too hard.

Though his scoring volume was down in the second half, I would argue Maxey’s closing effort was even more impressive. With all eyes on him and little secondary creation to speak of, Maxey had to navigate Chicago’s defense in a solo quest to keep the season alive. When they absolutely had to have a few buckets late, he was picture-perfect, dropping in a midrange jumper and a huge three to pad Philadelphia’s lead. And when Chicago decided to trap him, Maxey showed the maturity of a player who has faced a lot of those this season, finding the open man and trusting they’d get a good shot.

A big-time performance from him, and he is officially on a roll.

— Kelly Oubre still has the occasionally maddening game, but he is one of the players I have done the hardest heel turn on during my time covering the league. He used to be a guy that I thought was about the wrong things, constantly sledding through bad decision after bad decision with no thought for anything other than hunting his own. Is there still a selfish streak? Sure. But I think he does more than enough to make up for it.

I never thought I’d see the day where “vet leader Kelly Oubre” was a thing, but he has constantly been the guy to fill in wherever he’s needed. One constant: Oubre’s commitment to the glass this season has been terrific, with the athletic wing recognizing that gang rebounding is the only way they will make up for almost constantly playing small. He added another double-digit rebound game to a growing collection from this season, helping out a pair of bigs who have struggled to clean the glass on their own.

But they also need his shot creation and scoring right now, down two of their top three options and a heap of useful role players. And that, my friends, is a role Oubre will always be happy to serve. After some tunnel vision moments in the first half, Oubre walked the line perfectly during a critical stretch to open the fourth, with Nick Nurse trying to buy much-needed rest for Maxey. In addition to some big buckets of his own, Oubre hit this beautiful bounce pass to a rolling Yabusele, navigating the two-man action beautifully:

It has been cool to see him find a home in Philadelphia, flaws and all. 22 points, and they needed every one of them.

— Adem Bona is quickly making progress on the offensive end, where most of the question marks about his game were centered prior to last year’s draft. It’s early, but there is some nice synergy between Bona and Maxey in pick-and-rolls, and the latter must feel grateful that he has a chance to play with a true above-the-rim big for the first time in his career. With Bona setting consequential screens and Maxey putting pressure on defenses anytime he turns the corner, lob opportunities are going to be there.

Like, say, this type of opportunity:

But Bona is showing more than pure play finishing with more time, and he had some nice moments on that end against Chicago. He made an excellent short-roll pass to the corner for a Sixers three in the first half, and he is learning how to be “effectively” active, moving around as necessary to either set a screen or get to a favorable spot along the baseline.

— In a must-win game, Eric Gordon made a couple of huge transition defense plays in the fourth quarter, and his connective playmaking off of quick drive opportunities helped open the Bulls up. Solid night for him.

The Bad

— The Sixers committed one of the greatest basketball crimes I believe a team can. When Maxey was in the midst of that insane heater early in the game, they let him go two straight possessions without so much as touching the ball. For shame! Feed the hot hand, always.

The Ugly

— The Sixers got one of the best Paul George halves of the season to close out Cleveland on Friday night. They got a solid stint from him in the first half when he was out on the floor, with George hitting an early midrange jumper and a three to build off of the momentum from the night prior.

So of course, like everything fun that has happened during this Sixers season, it all fell away before halftime. George played just 42 seconds in the second quarter, jumping back into the floor for the final six minutes of the period, before needing to check out with a finger issue. Video footage appeared to show that George bent his finger while going up for a rebound with Nikola Vucevic, and you could see him flexing and turning over the hand several times before the Sixers called timeout and pulled him off of the floor.

Here’s a look at the injury, for those who aren’t bothered by a visual:

Although this seems like an injury that isn’t super impactful on paper — a pinky injury in his non-shooting hand is probably the “best-case scenario” for a hand problem — we don’t really know the extent of the problem yet. George being pulled immediately and ruled out for the rest of the game is not the best sign, of course, with the Sixers opting for an ultra-cautious approach on a night when they needed all available players to try to scrape out a win on the road.

Somebody should probably check to see if they built the Camden practice facility on an ancient Native American burial ground, or if someone has a voodoo doll and a stack full of needles to prick it with.

— I have tried to retain sympathy for Nick Nurse in the middle of this nightmare season, aware all the while that his options are slim. The Sixers were on a back-to-back with a shorthanded lineup against the Bulls, so they were going to go as deep into their bench as the head coach felt was necessary. All of that being said, if I ever see Maxey on the floor with Kyle Lowry and Reggie Jackson at the same time again, I am going to have a mental breakdown.

Playing it in the second half after George’s injury? Fine, sure, I get that they were boxed in. To open the second quarter? Preposterous.

— The Sixers had a four-on-one in transition late in the first half, with Kelly Oubre spearheading the break. Oubre decided the best course of action was to drive directly into the lone defender at the rim and hunt his own shot, and he missed the shot. Criminal act.