Tyrese Maxey second-half rampage saves Sixers vs. Pacers

Tyrese Maxey put together his first star-level performance of the season, leading the Sixers to a wild 118-114 victory over the Pacers with a monstrous second half.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— “A tale of two halves” probably undersells how putrid Tyrese Maxey had been for the first 10 quarters of Philadelphia’s season. We can make a few caveats with the other stars out and teams loading up to stop him, but frankly, he’s not facing anything an average NBA star should be unprepared to face. And after a rough couple of games to open the season, it looked like the struggles were starting to add some mental strain.

On several occasions in the first half of Sunday’s game, Maxey appeared to have a shooting opportunity, a driving lane, or a chance to make a play only to pull up gunshy. The worst play came on a potential midrange opportunity in the first half, where Maxey stared down the shot, tried pivoting into an up-and-under move, and lost his footing before committing a travel. That was one of four first-half turnovers for No. 0, and each one felt more depressing than the last.

Sunday’s first half also featured 24 of the most aimless minutes I think I have ever seen him play on the defensive end of the floor — Maxey attempted aggressive doubles only to never get close to the target, blew multiple rotations, and was a poor communicator on switches, opening opportunities up for Indiana all over the floor. It’s one thing when bigger and more athletic attackers bully him a bit in isolation, which is just the cost of building around a small-ish guard. It’s much more frustrating when a guy gifts the opponent points with poor floor intelligence. Put the two sides of the ball together, and he looked like a player who is overwhelmed by the situation at the moment.

All of that being said, Maxey came out and took control of the game in the third quarter, looking like the star guard everyone had been hoping to see in the first two games. What a relief. The real hoops have now started.

All it seemed to take was a pair of trips to the free-throw line for Maxey, where he was able to slow the game down, see a few freebies go in, and re-center himself. From there, it was a barrage of the best Maxey has to offer — multiple runners in traffic, a beautiful pull-up three, even a scoop layup around the outstretched hand of rim protector Myles Turner. As he grew in stature in the third quarter, you could see confidence bursting out of their lead guard, with Maxey talking shit to anybody who would listen for the final 1.5 quarters of this game. The threes started dropping, and as Indiana grew more fearful of the pull-up jumper, it became tougher and tougher to close driving lanes.

(Many of the best players in the league will tell you how valuable the free-throw line is for this very reason. Maxey has been playing too fast to open the year, clearly pressing a little bit while trying to carry the team on his own. Those mental resets at the charity stripe have been key for every major star in basketball history, a reliable way to change the course of a game.)

The final 29 minutes he put together wiped away his struggles in addition to some of the flimsier excuses for his poor start to the year. Maxey was adamant that he just needed to continue doing his job and make shots that were in his wheelhouse, and with persistence, he did just that. This is the bar he should be expected to clear. It doesn’t have to be perfect or the most efficient night of his career, and they’re not always going to win, but he has to find ways, pick spots, and serve as the focal point. Resilience is the name of the game.

— Andre Drummond was not able to bully Myles Turner to the degree we normally see from Joel Embiid in this matchup (that would have been a gigantic ask). But he was a positive force on the glass and a source of at least some offense during this one, and with points hard to come by at times, every bucket mattered.

More importantly, Drummond made a few huge defensive plays in the second half, none bigger than his strip in the final minute of regulation with the game hanging in the balance.

After Caleb Martin pushed Philadelphia to a narrow, one-point lead with about 30 seconds to play, all Drummond did was make another huge steal on the follow-up possession, putting the ball in Maxey’s hands with a chance to effectively ice the game at the stripe.

Although his defense has been an adventure overall — to be expected against the stretch fives he has had to face — Drummond has consistently generated steals and caused chaos for opposing drivers. In an aggressive scheme that has prioritized creating turnovers, Drummond is doing his part.

— I am a long-term skeptic of KJ Martin as a rotation player, but it’s fair to note he has been one of their best, most reliable defensive players so far this season. Martin is consistently making the right rotation and leveraging his athletic gifts, and he even hit his first three of the season on Sunday.

— I was about ready to send Eric Gordon to the phantom zone after the poor effort he had in Toronto on Friday night. Back in his hometown of Indianapolis, Gordon managed to turn back the clock and keep Philly’s offense afloat while they waited for one of their stars to show up this season.

Attacking off-the-dribble has not been Gordon’s friend so far this season, but with Indiana offering a red carpet to the rim, Gordon lulled Pacers defenders to sleep by setting them up with the threat of the three-point shot. 12 points in a half felt like 200 after his first two sleepy games, and they needed every last one of them.

Like McCain, Gordon also apparently decided his work was mostly done at halftime. I guess this is a team of part-time players.

But Gordon did have a nice layup in overtime, and they don’t get this one over the line without him.

The Bad

— You don’t get many opportunities to commend a guard for their impact on the glass, but Jared McCain looks like a guy who might make a consistent impact as a rebounder. That was part of his profile as an amateur player at Duke, and it’s already beginning to translate for the Sixers.

McCain got the opportunity to play first-quarter minutes against Indiana, and he almost immediately got to work on the offensive boards. With Indiana spending more time worrying about their bigger opponents, McCain did an excellent job bursting into small spaces to create second chances. Nick Nurse gave him plenty of rope in the first half after the strong start, and McCain scored a couple of quick buckets to go along with the hustle plays.

The second half, unfortunately, brought the downslope of the rollercoaster. McCain’s on-ball defense was horrific, with the Pacers blowing right past him to the paint or capitalizing on his struggles to stay connected in rotations. So it goes.

— Until the main stars arrive, Caleb Martin is probably going to frustrate a lot of people around the fanbase. He is being asked to create far, far too much at the moment, in part because he has come out of the gate cold as a shooter. It certainly doesn’t help that every jumper he gets up has been tightly contested, where his wonky mechanics aren’t doing him any favors.

The same could be said for Kelly Oubre, whose shot selection in this one was mostly sensible despite the ugly stat line he ended up with. There’s a reason nobody is lining up to make “second option Oubre” a thing on a full-time basis — he’s mostly a one-handed player, his touch is erratic as it gets, and his tunnel vision is up there with anybody in the league. In a key stretch late in the fourth, Oubre decided his best course of action was driving into a pile of bodies to flip a shot into the bottom of the rim. Oubre was also fortunate not to get called for a foul on Haliburton’s ridiculous three-point heave to send the game to overtime.

Maxey’s big second half was a start, but the Sixers need to find ways to reliably create open shots for their role players in these undermanned games. It’s going to be a long season otherwise.

— Guerschon Yabusele has shot poorly and still looks out of place as the backup five for this team. But I still can’t help but love the effort and energy he brings as an offensive rebounder, and the Frenchman threw his body around with reckless abandon against Indiana. Three of his offensive rebounds came on plays where he came from off-screen to rip possessions away from the Pacers, and we saw Yabusele diving all over the floor whenever a loose ball was within a reasonable distance from his fingertips. Have to love the approach, if nothing else.

The Ugly

— Caleb Martin’s foul at the end of overtime might be the single worst brain cramp in the history of the franchise, and they’ve had a lot of those. Thank goodness for all of our sanity that Haliburton missed the free throw.

— When Maxey hit his pull-up three to punctuate a nice run late in the third quarter, he came down beating his chest and dropping a lot of four-letter words that can’t be repeated on TV. But Kyle Lowry managed to add some levity to a much-needed moment for Maxey, trailing in his wake and imitating Maxey’s actions for a few seconds.

— Embarrassing effort from the officials down the stretch in this game. Weak tech call on Nick Nurse aside, they made the final few minutes last roughly half of an hour.