Tyrese Maxey’s ‘strange’ steal helps Sixers land improbable Game 1 win: ‘I’m glad I didn’t stop’

That sequence — which occurred just before a Celtics shot-clock violation — capped a 26-point effort for Maxey, who struggled against the Celtics during the regular season.

Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey dunks after a steal late in the fourth quarter against the Boston Celtics during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal playoffs at TD Garden.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Gina Mizell

Published May 2, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

BOSTON — Tyrese Maxey thought he heard a whistle.

Or the shot-clock horn.

Or something.

That’s why, after intercepting the pass thrown right to him near the top of the key just before a 24-second violation, and with nobody anywhere near his wide-open path to the opposite basket, Maxey momentarily looked back before dunking the ball.

The 76ers standout guard’s go-ahead bucket with less than 30 seconds to play Monday in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Boston Celtics sparked all kinds of in-the-moment and postgame confusion. It sucked the air out of a TD Garden crowd that abruptly flipped from jubilant to shell-shocked for the second consecutive night. And it capped a 26-point effort for Maxey, which helped lift his team to an improbable 119-115 win without MVP favorite Joel Embiid and temporarily snapped him out of his struggles against the Celtics this season.

“I was about to pick the ball up, and I’m so glad I just kept going,” Maxey said. “But, man, it was right place, right time.”

That was Maxey’s fourth steal of the night, further complementing a game when James Harden exploded for 45 points. And Maxey’s performance required him to overcome a knocked knee that briefly sent him to the stationary bike, and the fifth foul he picked up with 6 minutes, 47 seconds to play.

Entering Monday’s matchup, Maxey had failed to reach double figures in each of his last three regular-season games against Boston. He went a combined 9-of-32 in those outings, creating an obvious story line during the Sixers’ eight-day break between playoff series.

Assistant coach Sam Cassell and skill development coach Spencer Rivers reminded Maxey that the Celtics had consistently forced him to go left while handling the ball, and that he works on that component of his game “every single day.” Maxey credited teammates P.J. Tucker and Paul Reed for their screening Monday night, and De’Anthony Melton for encouraging him at halftime to get downhill more. Maxey went 10-for-24 from the floor, but he could live with the shots that “went in and out.”

“I made some that counted,” Maxey said. “But I got great looks.”

Maxey’s first burst arrived just after halftime, when he followed a pull-up three-pointer with a crafty layup high off the glass. Less than a minute later, he hit Reed for a cutting dunk that tied the score at 72, and later converted a scooping layup that put the Sixers up by four.

After a short absence to receive attention on that knee, Maxey hit a floater and a tough jumper. He then finished off an old-fashioned three-point play that cut Boston’s lead to 111-110 with 1:38 to play, before that final-seconds sequence that coach Doc Rivers described as “maybe one of the strangest plays I’ve ever seen.”

On that possession, Rivers said the Sixers wanted the Celtics to think they were in a zone defense, an in-game adjustment to finally temper Boston’s red-hot offensive start. But the Sixers played man-to-man and switched all screens, keeping ball handlers in front while running shooters off the three-point line. While quarterbacking the defense, Tucker said his goal was to “bait” that type of late pass by Boston’s Malcolm Brogdon by loading up on the right side of the court. Maxey, though, was preparing to crash the glass, convinced that Brogdon would take a jumper with the shot clock winding down.

When Brogdon’s unexpected pass landed in Maxey’s grasp, teammate Tobias Harris yelled, “Go, go, go! Finish that thing!” Tucker, meanwhile, outwardly expressed frustration, conceding that he “thought they blew the whistle, and I’m like, ‘Ain’t no way.’” Even after Maxey put the ball in the basket, Rivers acknowledged he “thought it was good, but I wasn’t positive.”

And with the visitors’ locker room largely cleared out, Melton pulled the bizarre play up on his cellphone for a rewatch. And another. And another.

Maxey eventually joined to look over his teammate’s shoulder, still bewildered at how it unfolded — and what his ears thought they heard.

“I’m glad I didn’t stop,” Maxey said.