Tyrese Maxey vows to rebound after season-low six points in Sixers’ loss to Suns: ‘I guess I was due’

PHOENIX — Tyrese Maxey struggled for several seconds to correctly fasten his wristwatch, eventually giving up and turning around to face the throng of reporters surrounding his locker.

It was that kind of night for the 76ers’ All-Star point guard inside the Footprint Center. Maxey slogged through his worst scoring performance of the season in a 115-102 loss to the Suns on Wednesday, finishing with six points on 3-of-13 shooting (but totaling seven assists) to begin a crucial late-season Western Conference road trip.

“I just couldn’t get in rhythm,” Maxey said. “I missed some easy ones. I missed some wide-open threes. … But it’s all right. I’ll bounce back. I’ve been playing pretty well, so I guess I was due for [a bad] one.”

» READ MORE: Sixers-Suns takeaways: Second-quarter blues; Maxey’s shooting woes; dominated on boards

“Due for one” because Maxey was coming off three consecutive 30-point games, adding 10 assists and eight rebounds in Monday’s important victory over the Miami Heat. Yet every subpar Maxey performance is magnified while the Sixers struggle to consistently generate enough offense without Joel Embiid, and while fighting for playoff positioning in a bunched-up portion of the Eastern Conference standings. Wednesday’s loss, paired with victories by the Indiana Pacers and Heat, dropped the Sixers (38-31) from sixth place to eighth in the Eastern Conference with 13 regular-season games remaining.

The Sixers also exited Wednesday ranked 27th in offensive efficiency (107.4 points per 100 possessions) since the All-Star break. The only teams that ranked lower during that span — the Detroit Pistons, Memphis Grizzlies, and Charlotte Hornets — are all bottom-dwellers waiting for their regular season to mercifully end.

Maxey, who is averaging 25.7 points and 6.2 assists this season, is now about seven weeks into this extended stretch as the Sixers’ bona fide No. 1 offensive option while Embiid, the reigning league MVP, recovers from knee surgery. Before Wednesday’s game, Suns coach Frank Vogel raved about Maxey, saying his “speed and shooting is just insane.”

“He’s one of the toughest guys, in my opinion, to prepare for,” Vogel said of Maxey. “We’ve got to look at this team, not as a team that doesn’t have Joel Embiid, but as a team that has one of the most dangerous players in the league. … That guy can flat-out go.”

Hours later, Vogel was praising his team for “a hell of a defensive response” in its collective effort on Maxey, including Bradley Beal at the point of attack and the big men while flustering him on pick-and-rolls.

Maxey missed five of his seven first-quarter shot attempts, a reason the Sixers could not create early separation despite holding Phoenix to 9-of-29 from the floor. He particularly lamented one three-point attempt before halftime, when the Suns “literally just forgot to guard me walking down the court, and I missed it” from the top of the arc. He then shifted his focus to playmaking with three third-quarter assists, including on back-to-back possessions that helped slash the Suns’ lead to nine points.

» READ MORE: Q&A with Sixers assistant Matt Brase on growing up in coaching and life without Joel Embiid

But when Phoenix closed the period on a 17-2 run to push its cushion to 24 points, coach Nick Nurse held Maxey out for the entire fourth quarter. After the game, Nurse also blamed a chunk of the Sixers’ defensive struggles — Phoenix shot 19-of-39 from three-point range — on quick, less-than-ideal shot selection from an offense that Maxey largely initiates.

In the bigger picture, Nurse continues to stress that he wants Maxey to be more aggressive because “he gets 30 [points], and there’s maybe some more to get, especially in the situation we’re in right now.” He also would like to see Maxey continue to work on adjusting his shot profile in-game, such as rising up for a pull-up or baseline jumper sooner when he is not getting foul calls on drives to the bucket. Nurse also has recently publicly challenged Maxey to be sharper on the defensive end, insisting that he can be a two-way player despite his smaller 6-foot-2 frame.

Maxey downplayed any additional pressure he feels while anchoring the Sixers offense without Embiid. The high standards he already sets for himself stem from his relentless work ethic. He did acknowledge, though, that if he “can’t get going, it’s really tough for us to win that way.”

» READ MORE: Why do the Sixers gravitate to chess? ‘I love games that stroke the mental’

Wednesday’s defeat was a prime example. As a high schooler, such a stinker in a loss would hang over Maxey’s head. He has since taken pride in adopting Kentucky coach John Calipari’s “debriefing” approach, insisting he will not dwell on his performance beyond Wednesday. Up next are the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings, who, like the Suns (and Sixers), are fighting for playoff positioning.

Yet Nurse also trusts Maxey’s ability to rebound as the Sixers continue this critical stretch run.

“He hasn’t had maybe any games like that this year,” Nurse said. “So we’ll just get him to bounce back and play a lot better the next game.”