Quick Six: Sixers ride Tyrese Maxey to improbable win over Rockets

Tyrese Maxey’s 42 points powered the Sixers to a 131-127 victory over the Houston Rockets, stealing another road win without Joel Embiid.

Here’s what I saw.

Downhill Maxey

Tyrese Maxey’s method of attack has changed quite a bit since he came into the league. His speed was the biggest weapon he had as a young player, and he needed to use that first to open up everything else, since his three-point shot didn’t arrive until year two. Over the last year or two, his outside shot has been the table-setter, with young Maxey drawing defenders out and then blowing past them with his speed.

He couldn’t buy one from deep in this game, and it simply didn’t matter. The Rockets were a lot less concerned about his ability to penetrate and finish than the Heat and Magic were earlier this week, and he punished Houston for the disrespect. Drop coverage was assaulted. Man defense was disrespected and disregarded, with Maxey blowing by defenders of all sorts on his way to the basket. And when Houston was able to meet him at the rim with some form of defense or rim protection, it mostly didn’t matter, with Maxey dropping some downright sensational finishes on their heads.

Life as a smaller guard is rough in the NBA unless you have a finishing package like the one Maxey has developed. Like many Texas legends before him, Maxey screwed and chopped the Rockets until all they could do was throw their hands up in disbelief.

Maxey’s relentlessness paid off at the charity stripe eventually, with the young guard working his way to a career-high in made free throws, something that must have made Joel Embiid and James Harden proud. There was no need for exaggerating contact, though, because he was so far past his man on most occasions that the foul calls were hard to miss.

27 first-half points and 42 total points later, Maxey was basically all that stood between the Sixers and defeat. In the first half, they hadn’t played particularly well or hard as a group, and he wiped it all away with his scoring. Despite a tough night from deep, he hit a huge three in the fourth quarter, showing the confidence to keep gunning even with that deep touch eluding him for a lot of the game.

Whatever concerns you might have about his playmaking — and he has destroyed those throughout this season — it’s easy to shrug those off when you can carry an offense for halves at a time with speed and shotmaking. He was the No. 1, 2, and 3 reasons they stole this game.

Pat Bev!

You could make a strong argument that Patrick Beverley was their second most important player in the fourth quarter.

(I won’t say the game, because Tobias Harris was a steady performer throughout the night, even sprinkling in some blocks and steals to go with the scoring output.)

Anyway. Every time the Rockets appeared to have the Sixers on the verge of defeat, Beverley hit a shot, grabbed an offensive rebound, or came up with some sort of play to keep the Sixers within reach.

So of course, on the game’s most important possession, he came up with the loose ball that turned into a made three for Marcus Morris, sealing the game for Philadelphia:

Somebody get that man a postgame beer, back-to-back be damned.

Odd defensive choices

The Sixers, for reasons that aren’t clear, played Jalen Green as if he was Damian Lillard for long stretches of this game. I suppose the idea was to try to force him into turnovers and punish him for his iffy handle, but he’s a horrible pull-up shooter and could have been enticed into taking low-value shots with a more passive approach.

On the other side of it, there didn’t appear to be a guiding principle for how they were going to deal with Alphren Sengun. In the first half, their attempts to double were sloppy and followed up with poor rotations. In the second half, they lost him for what felt like several minutes straight, with Paul Reed and his teammates unclear on who was supposed to check a trailing shooter or the guy rolling toward the basket.

Individually, this might go down as my least favorite De’Anthony Melton game of all-time. You can usually live with up-and-down defense in individual matchups because he brings it off-ball. I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing the entire night, no matter what the defensive coverage was.

And on the subject of choices, Nurse didn’t seem to have any good ones with the way Reed and Bamba played in this game. That said, going small and having to auto-double Sengun down the stretch didn’t feel like a smart use of the guys they had available.

Know your role, or hit the bricks

Nick Nurse has tried to empower everyone in his first year as Sixers head coach, and I think the results speak for themselves. Their offense has been awesome despite the loss of James Harden and a lot of roster changes…but we need to have a chat with some role players about what is (or isn’t) acceptable.

For example, Marcus Morris taking a pull-up midrange jumper with 18 seconds on the shot clock on a transition possession should be grounds for benching. Nurse would never be that draconian with his rotation choices, but that sort of play just can’t and shouldn’t happen for anyone on the roster, let alone a bench player most people expected to be out of the rotation.

Nurse has noted in press availability that there will come a time in the season where certain plays and players are dialed back based on the information he has collected. I have a prime candidate here for you!

(Just so this isn’t a pick on Morris section: Robert Covington picked up two horrendous fouls in unnecessary situations in the second half. Paul Reed had some, uh, interesting offensive choices. )

Rebound the GD ball, please

At halftime of this game, the Rockets had a 35-17 rebounding advantage. They had tripled the Sixers’ total for offensive rebounds, and that 12-4 margin felt worse watching it play out. You were probably going to have to live with a defeat there, given Joel Embiid’s absence and Houston’s athletic profile. But there were possessions where the Sixers did not care to put forth a token effort for rebounds, and those are plays that drive you crazy.

This was a problem long before Nurse abandoned his big men and tried to get away with going small down the stretch. And if I see another possession where the Sixers defend well and Tobias Harris stands flat-footed with his hands up near the basket, I’m going to snap, I promise. Attack the ball.

Where was this Van Vleet in the past?

Fred Van Vleet has 13 made threes in 13 career playoff games against the Sixers. He hit seven of those in less than three quarters on Friday night. I get it, he has had good games against Philly at some point, but most of my Van Vleet memories contain an avalanche of bricked jumpers.

This would have been a classic “make or miss league” game if the Sixers had lost it, so overcoming this type of shooting night from Van Vleet (and Green, for that matter) is quite an achievement for this group.