From star to superstar? Tyrese Maxey’s historic performance in Game 2 should flip the script

There is a list of names that tells you all you need to know about the heights toward which Tyrese Maxey is ascending.

Those are the most recent players to do what Maxey did against the New York Knicks in Game 2: record 35 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds in a playoff game.

LeBron has done it nine times, Westbrook three, Butler two. Kobe did it once, in 2010. Michael Jordan did it once, in 1990. Clyde Drexler, Steve Nash, Gary Payton, Larry Bird — they all did it once.

Two takeaways:

1) What Maxey did is a very difficult thing to do.

2) He did something that only superstars do. And not only superstars, but superstars who end up as centerpiece players on NBA Finals teams. There are only five players who do not fit that description among the 18 on the list in the three-point era. One is Westbrook, who won an MVP. Another is Dončić, who has finished in the top 5 twice. Another is Vince Carter, who had three top-15 finishes. Another is Morant, who finished seventh. The fifth is Maxey.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid is right. The Sixers were robbed by the refs. But are they really the better team?

“A year ago, we were saying it would probably be a year for him to step up, and he certainly did that in a number of ways,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said on Wednesday as the Sixers prepared for Game 3 of this Eastern Conference first-round series Thursday night. “And he’s not done stepping up this year.”

That’s a lot of weight to throw on a kid who is still on his rookie contract, a kid who entered the league with the purported upside of a good starter on a good team, a kid who averaged eight points as a rookie and 17.5 points as a sophomore, a kid who did not rise to second fiddle until his fourth year in the league.

The weight is very much deserved.

It’s funny. When the NBA announced Maxey as the winner of its Most Improved Player award on Tuesday, it almost felt like an honor unbefitting a player of the caliber that he had just announced himself to be. Swap in a “V” with that MIP trophy and then let’s talk.

Right now, the Sixers’ focus is rightfully the series, and the 2-0 deficit that they must now overcome. The memory of Monday’s last-second 104-101 loss still elicits a sting. A disappointment. A raging one. That’s what Game 2 was.

For now.

This summer, they will realize that it was more than that. Nurse and Daryl Morey will sit down to plot the future and they will see they already have a guard who can be a championship X factor. The focus won’t be Damian Lillard or James Harden or Jimmy Butler. The question isn’t, “Who do we pair with Joel Embiid?” The question is, “Who do we need now that we have a budding superstar in Maxey?”

I’m not saying that Maxey has become a player who makes any team an instant contender. Embiid is that guy, one of maybe four or five in the league. But Maxey showed us in Game 2 that he can be in that next tier of stars: right there with the Bookers, the Jalen Brunsons, the Jayson Tatums, the De’Aaron Foxes. Maybe not Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but a lot closer than you would have thought a year ago.

A year ago? Ask me then and I would have pegged him as a guy who was always going to need to play alongside a guy in a tier above him, or with a couple of guys in his own tier, along with the perfect set of complements.

I would have said that as somebody who has always been more bullish on Maxey than most. The shooting touch was evident from his first preseason game. The release was quick, the lower half was strong and square, the straight-line speed was as good as it gets. Within a year, it was clear that the attitude and work ethic were also there, and at a unique level. Maybe it was clear sooner than that, when he chose to wear the No. 0.

» READ MORE: Despite a Game 1 loss, the Sixers showed they are the more talented team. Is that enough?

“I remember my dad and Doc [Rivers] and a lot of people saying, zero excuses,” Maxey said. “You shouldn’t have any excuses now. You’re in the NBA, you have an opportunity to do what you want to do. For me, I just kind of live by that motto now. Zero excuses. Get up in the morning, work hard every day, zero excuses to go out there and work and fight our tails off as a team, as a unit to win games every single night. I just kind of live by that. It’s a motto.”

He was a potential star, sure. But he was a potential star who was lacking one of the elite, plus-plus tools or traits that all of the greats and almost-greats have: finishing ability, handle, size, strength, hops.

But then came Game 2 at Madison Square Garden. Specifically, the fourth quarter. The circumstances will never be more difficult than the ones Maxey encountered on Monday night. The Sixers were down by five after three quarters of madness. They were facing one of the NBA’s toughest defenses and one of its best defensive coaches. They were playing on the road. Their superstar center was dealing with an injury to his knee and perhaps one to his eye. Maxey himself had been sick all day and the previous night.

In the most important of moments, in the most difficult of situations, Maxey took his team on his back and carried it to the brink of a series-changing victory. He scored 15 points in the fourth quarter, hit 5-of-7 shots, nailed a 28-footer with just over a minute left.

Sure, he was the source of the turnover that cost the Sixers a win. But there is a reason he was double-teamed on the play. And there is a reason — as the NBA later admitted — that he was fouled.

He is an All-Star. He is a Most Improved Player. He is a reason to believe the Sixers can still win a playoff series.

He is only 23 years old, a mere 14 months older than Brunson was as a rookie.

“It’s just a testament to the work,” Maxey said.

The work has just begun.