The Sixers’ Tyrese Maxey had to “redeem” his Christmas performance from last year and delivered against the Celtics

Philadelphia 76ers fans got an extra gift under the tree on Christmas Day as the Sixers fought for their best win of the season, defeating the Celtics 118-114 in Boston. At the top was Tyrese Maxey, who had a whopping statistic of 33 points, four rebounds, 12 assists, three steals and one block. He became the first Sixer ever to hit 30 and 10 assists on Christmas, which he spoke about with reporters in Boston:

“It was cool. I had to rehabilitate myself from last year. Last Christmas…I screwed up. (Embiid: “You had like zero points. You were bad.” Maxey: “Alright, alright. We’re not going to live in the past.” Embiid: “You were like the worst player in the NBA this game.” Maxey: “I felt like it.” But yeah, I just wanted to win.”

As a reminder, Maxey shot a putrid (and extremely uncharacteristic) 4 of 20 from the field in a 119-113 loss to Miami last Christmas. I remember thinking that even a subpar performance from Maxey in that game and the Sixers would have won handily. Tyrese was asked if he had this game in mind:

“To be honest, I’ve had this in the back of my mind for a long time. (Trendon) Watford always messes with me in Brooklyn and says, “Yeah, you played well, did all these nice things in the playoffs and at the Garden, but can you play well at Christmas when you’re with your family.” “’ He calls me all the time and messes with me.”

Well, Maxey certainly proved he could still perform well when he had visions of sugar plums in his head.

Overall, the Sixers are looking more and more like the team we expected at the start of the season, with a record of 8-3 in their last 11 games. Tyrese was asked how much things have changed compared to a month ago:

“A lot of other things. Completely different, but I said back then: “Just give it some time.” It was difficult because the guys were in and out. When we finally thought everyone was going to play, I got hurt. That sucks. I had a little rhythm and then I got injured and we have to start over, figure everything out. When I return, Jo is injured. We have to figure it all out again. I think the biggest thing we’ve really achieved is that we’ve come together a lot more. We have a lot of new people… seven or something like that. It’s difficult. You don’t know how you want to play, you don’t know which combinations go together. I think we’ll finally find out. That’s a big compliment to our coaching team and also to Nurse.”

Speaking of (Ol’ Saint) Nick Nurse, the head coach discussed the two-man hit between Maxey and Embiid after the game:

“Tyrese, if he’s that aggressive and has just enough time to corner and get the jets on, go downhill – just enough of it – that’s certainly going to open up some wider drift threes and things like that. … We got a big foul when the game went haywire for a while there. Finally we got the ball across the middle of the court and did a side screen and roll with Tyrese and Joel and Joel rolled hard and we hit him and he got fouled. That was kind of a stabilizing possession. It’s pretty dangerous when both guys can shoot the ball and you have size and speed in that combination.”

Nurse also designed one of his patented out-of-bounds plays that Maxey converted to put the game on ice with just over a minute left.

Maxey later discussed this piece:

“I actually thought, ‘They’re not leaving Joel’s body.’ So he set up a good screen and I was able to curl it up and have a chance to get a layup. I don’t know how… a lot of things happened. I hyperextended my knee a little, but it’s all good.”

Hopefully we can look back and see this win over Boston as a turning point in the season. The Sixers have already moved past train wreck status, but perhaps this outing will mark the team’s ascension back into the ranks of pseudo-contenders. However, Maxey kind of shied away from that idea when asked if the win against the Celtics felt like a statement win:

“Honestly, any win is a good win for us at the moment. We knew this would be a tough test for us. I think the boys have really improved. … We had guys that played well; KJ played really well and was out there. Andre played solid and was out there. So we knew some people had to step up. Reggie Jackson didn’t play for a minute, but he went out there and did a really good job. Kyle did a good job too.”

I don’t know what the future holds for these Sixers (something dramatic and unexpected if I had to guess), but for now the team is reasonably healthy and playing good basketball. Every year I will add a trip like the one we just saw from Maxey to my vacation wish list.