Instant observations: Tyrese Maxey game-winner bails out lifeless Sixers effort vs. Kings

Tyrese Maxey’s game-winning layup lifted the Sixers to a 113-111 win over the visiting Sacramento Kings, with Maxey dropping a 40-ball the 76ers required to get this game over the line. Joel Embiid chipped in an efficient 37 points of his own, and the Sixers otherwise played a very unserious brand of basketball.

Here’s what I saw.

A two-star effort on offense

A first half like Tyrese Maxey played on Thursday night almost feels like a billboard over I-95 designed to lure Giannis Antetokounmpo to town. Hey pal, I heard you were interested. Don’t you think it would be nice to play with a guy who can put up an effortless 23 points on 10 shots in two quarters, who can also thrive on and off the ball? Sounds good, right?

Mercifully, after a long string of games where his jumper was missing in action, Maxey finally got the threes to start dropping. After hitting a long two to open his account inside the arc, a single made jumper quickly turned into a flurry, with Maxey nailing two consecutive threes before going for a major heat check, turned away by the rim on the last shot. But it was an early scoring flurry during a part of the season where those have been hard to come by, and the best defense the Kings played against him was allowing the Sixers to hunt other mismatches. After that initial Maxey burst, the Sixers spent a lot of time trying to run the offense through Embiid and Paul George, to mixed results in the early going.

In fairness, the results for Embiid were overwhelmingly dominant as the first half went on. He had an identical 7/10 mark from the field after the first half, scoring 19 points of his own against Domantas Sabonis and rookie big Dylan Cardwell, who simply had no chance to guard him around the basket. Embiid flipped in hook shots with both hands, establishing deep enough position that he could throw the ball over his head and have a good chance of seeing it drop through the rim after a soft bounce or two.

The Kings are not a team with any realistic chance to contain these two. Maxey’s speed is a mismatch for just about anybody they could throw on him, and without a real rim protector to dissuade him from attacking the basket, it was free lunch anytime he created perimeter separation, with Sabonis and Co. too worried about Embiid or even the vertical spacing of Adem Bona on the back end. Maxey did a great job of using the early shooting success against the Kings, finding the right balance of space-clearing stepbacks and hesitation moves that lurched him past his defender, driving into space for paint touches and kick-out passes. Speaking of, it was a good floor game for Maxey, too, who had six assists against just one turnover at halftime. When the Kings committed bodies to turn him away from the rim, Maxey generally found the open shooter and, of course, worked the two-man game well with the big guy.

This was a very favorable matchup for Embiid because Sabonis offers very little to bother him on both ends. Sabonis is too small to guard him well in the post and not enough of a shooter to drag him out to the perimeter. He was crisp as a scorer for the first 3.5 quarters, shimmying and shooting his way to an efficient 37 points, though he had some nasty turnovers in crunch time.

Thankfully, they had Tyrese Maxey in crunch time, and they ran one of their staple ATO plays for the game-winning finish in crunch time.

GAME WINNER. pic.twitter.com/4clBbepFSV

— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) January 30, 2026

But boy, it didn’t need to be this difficult.

An unserious performance

Embiid and Maxey’s offensive execution did about 2.5 quarters of papering over a pretty despicable defensive effort before Sacramento made this a game. And I will not absolve anyone, particularly the former name in that duo, for a horrific night of clearing the porch for the Sixers. This is a painfully bad defensive rebounding team, and there are plenty of fixable errors being made out of laziness or sloppy fundamentals.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Philadelphia was an absolute disaster in the third quarter of this game. The Kings killed them on the offensive glass, shot what felt like a million percent from the floor (it was actually 73%, I believe) and took advantage of a Sixers team that couldn’t stay focused for more than 10 seconds at a time. It is not misphrased to say the Sixers actively gave away rebounds. On several occasions, guys like Paul George, Oubre, and Maxey stood flat-footed and watched balls sail over their heads, with the Kings more desperate to chase down loose balls.

When Embiid stood near the rim and had a soft rebound bounce off his chest, fall to the floor, and into the hands of Sabonis for an eventual putback in the third, I was half-inclined to stop watching the game. If the guys on the floor can’t be bothered to get serious, do they actually deserve your time? It was a game where they stayed ahead for 2.5 quarters through offense and talent rather than any sort of seriousness with which they approached the game. Eventually, their lack of care caught up to them, and a down-in-the-dumps Kings team had a spark to go for the win.

Late in the game, some scheme and decision-making problems came roaring to the forefront. The Sixers’ wildly aggressive help principles dragged defenders away from shooters and toward DeMar DeRozan in the middle of the floor, gifting open looks to guys like Dennis Schroder in the midst of a huge night from deep. Fleeing from Zach LaVine to trap DeRozan was semi-defensible with how LaVine shot against Philly, 5/16 in regulation and 2/6 from deep, but gifting him a wide open three rather than letting DeRozan try to attack with time winding down on the shot clock was, well, interesting. They have been persistent about trapping in late-game situations recently, and they’ve rarely executed well.

This game also spells out the danger of having to rely as heavily as they are on young players to drive winning. VJ Edgecombe has had an outstanding rookie season, but he had a howler on offense against Sacramento, shooting poorly from downtown while making questionable decisions on both ends of the floor. He was one of the few players who showed any interest in trying to play defense, ripping three steals away from Kings player with tough on-ball defense, but he was completely out of sorts trying to find his place in the offense. His transition turnover in the fourth quarter was a symptom of that battle, Edgecombe trying to force his way through instead of playing patient and allowing his moment to arrive naturally.

A game like this is part of why people are reluctant to take the Sixers seriously, even if they are a much more enjoyable watch than last season. They have carried themselves like a team that has accomplished a lot more than they have in practice, as if a few hot stretches erase all of the games they’ve given away against lesser competition. Their record and place in the standings have been well-earned, and I can understand anyone who continues to look at this group with a skeptical eye.

They were serious for about 8 total minutes of this game. Evidently, that was enough.

Hard to watch

I don’t think I am out of line calling this the most boring Sixers game to watch all season. Even the Hornets game on Monday, a disaster on just about every front, was interesting from a “How bad can this get?” perspective. Thursday’s date with the Kings, on the other hand, was a lifeless affair that never felt in jeopardy but also didn’t provide a ton of Sixers highlights of note.

One reason it felt that way for me? An endless parade of fouls committed by the Sixers. This was as undisciplined as they’ve been all year, and DeMar DeRozan is the type of guy who is going to use every trick in the book to put you in jail for reaching, jumping, or even stepping in the wrong direction. Adem Bona picked up three fouls in about six minutes of action, which isn’t the most surprising outcome in the world, but did add to the yawn-inducing vibes of the game.

Other notes

— There was a brief VJ Edgecombe injury scare at the end of the second quarter, and I am going to need him to never have that happen again. Thank you for your consideration, rook.

— The Sixers’ bench was absolutely useless yet again on Thursday, and a group that felt like it had clicked into place in a few ways is really searching for stability again. Jared McCain came back down to Earth after a scorcher vs. Milwaukee, Dominick Barlow had a single rebound in almost 21 minutes, and the Bona/Drummond combo had 2 combined around in 12 combined minutes while also going scoreless.

— The broadcast referred to referee Leon Wood as the only gold medalist in the building during the third quarter. Two different Sixers players have won gold medals for Team USA, the last time I checked. The Kings also have Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Russell Westbrook, each of whom has an Olympic gold medal for Team USA. Maybe the most wrong proclamation that has ever been made?