Tyrese Maxey cuts through Game 3 chaos to help lift Sixers to victory over Brooklyn Nets

Maxey scored 25 points in the Sixers’ 102-97 victory at Barclays Center to take a commanding 3-0 lead in their first-round series. It was a game they had to finish without an ejected James Harden.

Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey celebrates his three-point basket late in the fourth quarter of Game 3.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Gina Mizell

Published April 21, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

NEW YORK — During a timeout with about four minutes to play in the fourth quarter of Thursday’s Game 3 playoff matchup against the Brooklyn Nets, Sam Cassell approached Tyrese Maxey with a candid message.

The 76ers assistant coach told Maxey it looked like he did not want the ball, that he was content to pass to MVP frontrunner Joel Embiid and “get out of the way.” The work Maxey put in, Cassell reminded, gave him permission to be aggressive.

“As he told me that,” Maxey later recalled, “he gave me the green light.”

Sixers coach Doc Rivers had drawn up a play for Maxey during that same timeout, resulting in a floater Maxey missed but knew was “a good shot.” So he went right back to it, getting past defender Cam Johnson and lofting the ball over Dorian Finney-Smith to cut the Nets’ lead to 92-91 at the 3:08 mark. Then, Maxey hit a pull-up three-pointer with about two minutes to go, before swiping a steal and laying in the game-tying bucket. Then he buried a step-back three-pointer with 44.7 seconds remaining, his tongue hanging out in celebration as the Sixers took the lead for good.

Maxey cut through the chaos on a night James Harden was ejected, Embiid repeatedly hit the floor and the Nets aimed to muck the game up. The third-year guard started hot and then recaptured his shot-making burst down the stretch, scoring 25 points on 10-of-17 from the field (5-of-8 from long range) in the Sixers’ 102-97 victory at Barclays Center to take a commanding 3-0 lead in their first-round series.

“My mindset’s always been the same — and that’s to win and do whatever it takes to win,” Maxey said. “Tonight, when our ballhandler, our leader, went out, it was take that role and help us get into our stuff and help us win the game.”

Maxey made six of his first eight shots to score 15 first-half points, often as the beneficiary while the Nets continued their relentless double- and triple-teams on Embiid. That scorching start included a crafty up-and-under finish at the basket, along with a three-pointer that gave the Sixers a 51-40 lead in the second quarter.

Yet Maxey did not score in the second half until after that blunt chat with Cassell. Maxey said part of the reason he initially did not shoot as much after the break was because of how the ball organically flowed whenever Embiid passed out of those defensive traps. But after Harden was ejected for a flagrant 2 foul, Maxey became the primary ballhander with the responsibility and freedom to “dictate” where it went.

“Sometimes, he gets lost in the shuffle, just with James and Jo,” teammate P.J. Tucker said, “but he don’t need a lot to get going. Tyrese gets a layup, gets fouled, gets a couple free throws, and then he can just run them off and take over the game.

“Having that ability, he’s so young, he doesn’t even know … he’s that good.”

These are the types of performances that Rivers believed Maxey was capable of even during his rookie season. The coach expressed that during a meeting that season that initially left Maxey “highly confused,” because he was out of the rotation at the time. Today, Maxey already views that conversation as a “turning point of my young career” because he “felt a confidence switch” that has only been reinforced by teammates and coaches in the two years since.

He opened last year’s playoffs with a 38-point outburst against the Toronto Raptors, sending the Wells Fargo Center more and more into a frenzy with each make. He scored 20 or more points five more times during that 12-game postseason run. But he was disappointed with his finish, and vowed that his offseason motto would be “NGE” — or “not good enough.”

This season, Maxey dealt with the adversity of his broken foot, then with his role fluctuating between starter and sixth man. He ripped off a terrific final month of a regular season when he averaged a career-high 20.3 points per game, then rebounded from a 3-of-8 shooting output in Game 1 against the Nets to score 33 in Monday’s win.

When asked how the Sixers kept their composure during a game filled with physical and emotional clutter, Maxey pointed to “old guys” such as Tucker. Though he understands he is technically the outlier as the youngest in a starting lineup with loads of playoff experience, he said, “I feel old now, because I’ve been out there playing with them.”

Perhaps that’s why Rivers said he could sense Maxey “wanted” the shot out of the timeout that unlocked his stretch-run scoring burst. And in the postgame locker room, Harden described Maxey’s performance as “unbelievable.”

“He made just timely plays,” Harden said, “whether it was his three-ball, getting to the basket. [He was] just being free. That’s what he’s been doing all year.”