Sixers lose heartbreaker to Nuggets despite explosive Tyrese Maxey performance

The Sixers battled the Nuggets for all 48 minutes behind a career night for Guerschon Yabusele and 42 points from Tyrese Maxey, but they fell 137-134 to Nikola Jokic’s Nuggets.

Here’s what I saw.

(Before we get started, I just wanted to make sure I sent a note of love to the people in Northeast Philly, those in the aircraft that crashed on Friday night, and those who were or will be impacted by the aftermath of the event. The only point of solace I can take is that it seems that flight was mere yards away from making an even more sizable impact, and that we’re fortunate we didn’t lose a lot more Philadelphians on top of the existing tragedy. Cherish your life and your loved ones while you have them, you never know when they could be taken away.)

The Good

— The “Tyrese Maxey All-Star revenge game” was off to a rough start in the opening minutes of Friday’s game. He committed three turnovers in the span of about 90 seconds, although he had a reasonable gripe on the third one, with Russell Westbrook committing what I thought was an obvious kick that caused Maxey to lose his mind. And he was in reckless gunner mode on top of that, continuing a trend we’ve seen from their win streak of putting everyone else aside. That works when you’re cooking, not when you’re 1/4 from the field.

Thankfully, that was just the opening chapter of his Denver story. Maxey put together some absolutely beautiful scoring moves against the Nuggets, unsettling the visitors with some masterful footwork and purposeful moves around the rim. Julian Strawther looked to be playing in a different game than Maxey on several possessions in the first half, with Maxey getting him to bite so hard that Strawther was drawing dead on the recovery:

The outside shot has still been shaky even when he has had it rolling as a driver and midrange shooter. That changed on Friday, when Maxey turned in one of those games where the Nuggets had to drop to their knees and pray that he wasn’t going to bomb pull-up threes on their heads all night. They did a poor job in containment in the first half, allowing him to step into some practice shots from deep, and it was over from that point forward.

There are a lot of exciting styles you can end up watching at an NBA game, but it is hard to match the energy of a building when a player like Maxey gets rolling from deep. The building begins to sway, with fans leaning and gesturing from their seats as he gets into another stepback jumper to his left. And each made shot adds a few decibels to the yell that erupts from every fan in the building, as if they are willing Maxey into hitting another backbreaking shot from deep.

But the beautiful thing for Philadelphia is what the emergence of that outside shot does for every other part of his game. You saw it play out in the final five minutes of the meeting with Denver — Maxey gestured to Guerschon Yabusele to come up and set a screen for him, and with two Nuggets players scrambling to try to stop him from getting a look at a jumper, they failed to prepare for him driving with speed before the pick ever came. Advantage Maxey, who is not losing a foot race to anybody if you give him a head start.

This is the best extended stretch we’ve seen from Maxey, and it is by far the best stretch he has had as the No. 1 option. The degree of difficulty for him right now is absurd when you consider who he has to go to war with every night, and this was an absolute statement performance by him on national TV.

— Entering Friday night’s game, Guerschon Yabusele’s career high for a single NBA game was 22 points. He had 18 at the half, pulling Denver apart by forcing Jokic and the rest of the Nuggets to defend all the way out to the perimeter.

Yabusele’s value as a shooter has been far better than most would have expected coming into the year, and I think that goes well beyond the percentages. Although he is a standstill shooter most of the time, he’s not a standstill player — Yabusele is always looking for the optimal spot to slide to, or for another opportunity to screen if a possession calls for a pick-and-pop to get things moving. We may need to make up a term for that type of shooter beyond the usual “movement” and “spot-up” labels. Maybe Yabusele could be the first ever “slow-moving target” in the NBA.

In any case, you can see why so many playoff teams and would-be contenders are calling the Sixers to see what it would take to pry Yabusele away at the deadline. As hopeless as he was trying to contest Jokic at any level on the floor, he helped Philly go shot-for-shot with Denver in a track meet game. In a world where they all get healthy again — I know, I know — he is the clear option to be Embiid’s primary backup and should continue to have a big role.

(You know who also probably feels that way? Tyrese Maxey. His life is monumentally easier on offense leading a second unit with Yabu opening the floor compared to running with Drummond’s ground-bound, paint-centric offense.)

— Every game that goes by, you become more convinced that Justin Edwards should get a standard NBA contract from the Sixers. He is doing everything you could hope for out of a young guy during an undermanned stretch, contributing and producing without ever feeling like he’s doing the typical “doing too much” thing that happens with rookies. Quick-release shooting will carry you a long way.

He had one of the highlights of the game for a different reason, though, hitting a spin move at halfcourt into a lob to Yabusele that nearly blew the roof off of the building:

— Kelly Oubre is a good slasher even against better defenses, so if you give him woeful point-of-attack defense and little help at the rim, he can make your life a living hell. That’s exactly what we saw in Friday’s first half, with Oubre cutting through the Nuggets like a hot knife through butter.

It seems impossible that he can be as successful as he is around the basket without ever wanting to use his right hand, but Oubre has been at this long enough that he will figure out a way to get back to his dominant left, including (and especially) when he drives right. He’ll drag you along with him, right until the moment that he’s about to let it go, and then drift ever so subtly toward the middle of the paint, taking a straight-on runner or layup with his left. Hard to argue with the results.

The Bad

— Good god man, did you guys watch the defensive effort in the first half?

The Ugly

— Terrible possession for the Sixers on their ATO in the final 15 seconds. Either take a quick two or hunt the three, you can’t settle for a slow two.

— Tyrese Maxey had what may have been the worst eight-second violation in basketball history in the first half. Uncovered, walked it up the floor, just had no idea what the number was on the clock. Nobody from the Nuggets was even across halfcourt!

— Everyone has apparently decided there will be no attempt to play defense on either end of a Sixers-Nuggets game. The Denver meeting was an abomination that was hard to watch. In the first half, I’m not sure either team put more than two good defensive possessions in a row. It was a glorified shootaround session.

Games like these stick in my head when Jokic is discussed as the untouchable MVP and best player in the league because I flip back and forth based on which end we are watching. I was disgusted watching him defend in this game, while the offensive end absolutely makes that case, whether you’re judging with eye test or numbers. Philadelphia responded any time he touched the ball like he had possession of the nuclear codes in his hands, and he made the right move with the ball just about every time. No-look passes, perfectly-timed feeds to cutters, spin moves, and so on. He has it all, and he puts it to good use.

Not that the Sixers responded well to the full Jokic arsenal. Philadelphia did a really poor job of tracking players off-ball on Friday night, and while they may have succeeded in preventing more open threes, they allowed a team that doesn’t shoot a ton of threes to get exactly what they want, a layup parade with Jokic as the center of the universe. At least Philadelphia’s transition defense was better and more engaged, which was the big problem in Denver, but hard to tip your hat to a team that had the opponent shooting somewhere between 60 and 70 percent the whole game. Can’t blame one guy or even a group of guys for that, it’s a teamwide failure.

Philadelphia’s biggest sin, at least the most notable sin in winning time, was their refusal to scram switch when Tyrese Maxey got stuck on Jokic as the primary defender a couple of times. They lucked their way into one Jokic miss, but the second one had Jokic back Maxey into no-win territory before he put two easy points in the basket as Maxey committed a useless reach-in foul. Bad decision-making by Maxey, but the support from his guys was just as bad. They then, for some reason, decided they were going to trap Jamal Murray on a Jokic/Murray action to end the game, and Jokic got to go through Kelly Oubre for an easy two points to ice the game. Brutal stuff, even if they had few (if any) good options.