Tyrese Maxey saves Sixers season in Game 5 masterpiece vs Knicks

Tyrese Maxey willed the Sixers to an improbable overtime victory against the Knicks, pushing Philadelphia over the line in a 112-106 victory in New York.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— Tyrese Maxey has had some low moments in this series, most notably in the end stages of the Game 4 loss. But if anyone has cemented his spot as one of the darlings of Philadelphia, it is this kid, having willed his team back from death when just about everyone was ready to throw in the towel.

Philadelphia desperately needed Maxey to carry the team on offense in this one, with their role players 0 for a million from three and Embiid completely off of the pace. There were pockets of this game when it looked like he’d be dragged down along with the rest of these guys, particularly in the middle part of the second quarter. Maxey picked an odd time to play passively as a scorer and was somewhat fortunate the Knicks didn’t run away with the game during that stretch.

However, with the season on the line and the Knicks mostly cruising, Maxey came out with a counterpunch. His chemistry with Joel Embiid was never more important than in the opening five or six minutes of the third quarter, with the Sixers spamming Maxey and Embiid actions until the Knicks proved they could stop them. Dribble handoffs have been a money play for these two all year, with Embiid’s size creating just enough separation for Maxey to turn the corner and put the opposing team in danger.

Instead of just having Maxey sit on Embiid’s first pass away as he got doubled on the block, Philadelphia got creative to weaponize Maxey’s speed. Embiid hit him on a couple of cuts off-ball with beautiful passes through traffic, and all Maxey had to do from there was finish at the basket. Easy for me to say, of course. The Knicks offered some tough contests on Maxey’s trips to the rim, but his years of work in the lab have certainly paid off. Maxey shrugged off a slow start to the game from three by leaning into the finisher package, hitting reverse layups and extremely difficult scoop shots that drew oohs and ahhs from the road crowd.

Even as Embiid continued to fall and flail in the fourth quarter, it was Maxey who managed to come up with more answers, trying his best to keep them in the game. The final minute of the game played out almost like a sports movie. Maxey drew a terrible Mitchell Robinson foul on the perimeter to cash a four-point play, giving the Sixers an outside chance at getting to overtime. After Josh Hart merely split the ensuing pair at the free-throw line, Maxey had his opportunity to star at the Garden, and he did not waste it:

It was a superhero performance from Maxey when absolutely anything less would have put them on their couches for the rest of the playoffs. What a kid, what a moment, and what a spot to do it in.

— You can usually tell in the first five minutes of a closeout game whether a team trailing in the series is up for the task of a comeback. However, I suppose it’s more accurate to say you know if they won’t get up for that task because teams ready to go on vacation will let you know with their effort.

Much to everyone’s surprise, it was soon-to-be-former Sixer Tobias Harris who came out of the gate hot. He was quite literally the only guy to get something going to open this game, with Harris’ five points the only points scored by either team for the first four-plus minutes of the game. A wing three and a midrange jumper were the difference for that opening stretch, but Harris contributed in other ways, too. The veteran forward was active in passing lanes and deflected a few balls to junk up Knicks possessions.

As the rest of the team got swallowed up by Madison Square Garden in the second quarter, Harris was basically the only guy who kept his bearings, hitting a key shot or two to help the Knicks from blowing the game wide open. That trend continued in the second half — with Embiid just sort of mosying around and Maxey not quite in a groove yet, it was Harris who played a bit of bully ball, using a post-up to score two points and draw a Knicks timeout less than two minutes into the second half.

— A lot of the criticism about the Sixers in Game 4 centered around platitudes and generalities, accusing this Sixers team of lacking fight and toughness. I think there’s an important distinction to make. They have certainly gotten beat on most of the important hustle plays and gave up far too many offensive rebounds in this series, but the Sixers did not play defense like a team that quit. They busted their asses for almost all of 48 minutes, from the little guards to the guys on expiring contracts.

And for whatever his other issues were in this game, Embiid certainly wanted to play defense. After getting toasted by Jalen Brunson on several big plays to open overtime, Embiid was massive in the final few minutes, coming up with three monster defensive plays in a row that included two huge blocks at the rim and a strip of Brunson in isolation, locking down the paint at the exact moment they needed it.

— Cam Payne was a player many of us viewed as unplayable in the postseason because of his defensive limitations. He has been one of the few Sixers bench players actually to prove his worth during this run, stepping into the sharpshooter role that we all thought Buddy Hield would fill off of the bench. For the second time in this series, Payne came in off of the bench and hit some monster threes, providing some of the only punch they got from the reserves all night.

The Bad

— I will say about Embiid what I have said in many elimination games that have come and gone over the years — once you are out there and between the lines, you are responsible for your quality of play. If you aren’t good enough to go out there because of injury or illness, I will never sit in my seat on press row and accuse you of being soft. But once you’re out there with your teammates in a big game, you have forfeited your right to cry uncle and cop a plea if it all goes south.

Just as they did in the final moments of Game 4, the Knicks loaded up against Joel Embiid in New York, treating every post-up as an automatic double team. The one thing I thought Embiid did right the whole night was reacting to that pressure as a passer, hitting swing pass after swing pass to set up open threes in the opposite corner. It is not his fault that the Sixers missed a ton of open shots that were created by his gravity. But he owns all of the other stuff within his control.

Embiid was clearly off the pace in this game from minute one. Aside from rebounding the basketball, which appeared to take all of his energy, he had very little to offer this team. His movement in space was almost nonexistent, he was a non-factor as a pick-and-roll player, and Philadelphia’s offense defaulted to slow, stagnant possessions through him on the left block, where the Knicks did an excellent job of standing him up. I understand why Embiid isn’t able to generate the leverage to get consistent deep touches right now, but it’s to his and the team’s shame that they rarely attempted to do so. It isn’t immediately clear how much the morning of migraine impacted him during the game, but he looked like a player moving through a haze, throwing silly turnovers along the baseline while being completely unable to do anything against backup big Mitchell Robinson.

He would have more plausible deniability for putting up a stinker in this spot if we hadn’t seen him capitulate in this spot before. Would his assist numbers have improved with better shotmaking? Sure, but he also gave the ball away far too often. Was he helpful on the defensive glass? Much more than most of his teammates, but without the scoring punch on the other end, it’s hard to say a normal-ish night of rebounding made up for his poor shooting.

By the time Embiid reached the fourth quarter, he had already mostly sealed a bad performance. He somehow managed to send it over the top with a braindead, headless chicken act in the first six minutes of the fourth, laboring through the start of the quarter after playing the entire third. Embiid had his worst turnovers of the game when everything was on the line, prompting Nick Nurse to sub him out for a brief break on the bench, rethinking his strategy.

This performance was nowhere near the realm of acceptable for him. So whatever you think about the share of responsibility for the rest of this series, place the blame where it belongs for this one: on the shoulders of No. 21. The trash talk of the basketball universe will come raining down on him after this game and the end of this series, and he needs to answer the bell in Game 6.

— For all of the bluster about Nick Nurse’s aggressive adjustments and advantages over Doc Rivers in a playoff series, I have been pretty unimpressed by what he had to offer vs. New York in a do-or-die game. Outside of their Game 3 offensive tweaks that led to a second-half barrage, this has been a Plain Jane series for Nurse. He waited for the process to win out eventually, and things still haven’t turned around on several important fronts while we wait for adjustments.

The minutes without Embiid in this series were an absolute disaster, and while it’s easy to lay blame at the feet of Paul Reed, the head coach is the guy who kept putting him back out there without changes to the lineup. There were no attempts to play small, no attempts to inject energy and athleticism with guys like KJ Martin and Ricky Council IV, nothing except for the same slop for five consecutive games. Eventually, you are the crazy one for expecting something to change.

When the Sixers have made changes, it has not felt like they were impactful or even sensible. Philadelphia did a fair bit of trapping against Jalen Brunson in Game 5, but it felt like the slowest and least impactful trapping you could throw at an opposing guard. Their pickup point was close to the three-point line, which meant Brunson was one medium-difficulty pass away from putting an open teammate at the free-throw line with a two-on-one against Embiid. Even when Embiid is moving well, and he sure wasn’t on Tuesday, it’s lunacy to expect that to work out for your team enough to justify playing that style.

There is a thin line between losing your identity and adjusting for the moment, but it wasn’t as though the Sixers developed some ironclad identity this season that they simply couldn’t break away from. Throw some crazy stuff at the wall and see what happens. Play your actual athletes and give the Knicks two minutes of full-court, balls-to-the-wall defense. I get that the margins are thin in this series, but yeesh.

— Kyle Lowry gave the Sixers just about nothing outside of five fouls in this game. It has been a good run for him during his brief time back home, but this was a clunker when they could least afford it.

Nic Batum wasn’t a whole lot better. The recipient of a bushel of open looks from the perimeter, Batum came up wanting over and over and over again, reminding viewers at home why one LA rapper once pondered why the F Batum was in.

Turns out that relying on role players in their mid-to-late 30s is a difficult proposition in the playoffs. Who would have guessed?

The Ugly

— The officials in this series were straight-up terrible. So many blown calls in both directions.

Related to this subject, the NBA’s challenge system makes no sense at all. When Tom Thibodeau challenged a foul in the final minute of the first quarter, there is no way he would consider it a “successful” challenge for the officials to move the foul from Mitchell Robinson to Josh Hart. Someone with common sense needs to be added to the rules committee to hash this out.