The Sixers have a Tyrese Maxey Problem - Sixers Fall to Pistons Friday Night - 76 Place

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This team has a Tyrese Maxey problem.

The problem really has nothing to do with Maxey himself; he's done nothing wrong and is clearly the Sixers best player. The issue is that their offensive strategy - particularly late in games - has become: give it to Tyrese Maxey and let him figure it out. Everyone else seems afraid to touch the ball in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, as if Tyrese Maxey is a selfish 8-year-old who will immediately call for the ball back after he gives it up.

So is Tyrese Maxey actually that selfish? Is that the issue we have here? That Maxey is the greatest ball hog in the history of the sport? I don't think that's quite it.

They've been forced to resort to this in a way. The Sixers top two highest paid players this season are Joel Embiid and Paul George - neither of which have been playing as of late. With Embiid, it's right knee soreness, which will inevitably keep him out of action for much longer than expected, while it's recovery from knee surgery for George. Ideally, they're both big parts of the offensive identity of this team. To make matters worse, Kelly Oubre left tonight's game with a knee injury of his own (what's going on with all the knee problems? They kneed to figure that out ;) pls don't stop reading after this), giving the Sixers one less offensive option late in the game.

The five on the floor in crunch time consisted of Tyrese Maxey, Quentin Grimes, VJ Edgecombe, Dominick Barlow, and Andre Drummond. Over the final six minutes of the game, the Pistons outscored the Sixers 13-6. The Sixers got four points from Maxey and two points from Dominick Barlow - which came on a meaningless dunk at the 1:32 mark, down 11 - but more importantly, the field goal attempts came from only Maxey (6), Barlow (2), and Grimes (1).

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher

Tyrese Maxey is a terrific player, I get it. He had 31 points tonight - ON 31 SHOTS! He went 2-11 from three - clearly was not on his A-Game. And there's two different takeaways from that: 1. It's wildly impressive he still somehow scored 31 on an off night, and 2. What does this say about the state of the Sixers offense that he needs to attempt 31 shots?

They have no other legitimate offensive threat on any given night, other than Maxey. It's going to be really tough to win close games when your entire game plan in crunch time is to let Maxey do his thing and that's it. He's good, but he's not Tracy McGrady 13 points in 33 seconds good. Nobody is. Not even Tracy McGrady.

In other news, I think the return of Dominick Barlow is huge for this team. He brings terrific energy and affects the game in a way that I can't quite put into the words. The Sixers are just a better team when he's available. He had five offensive rebounds tonight.

Andre Drummond continues to impress in Joel Embiid's absence, recording yet another double-double (12 points, 11 rebounds). In the last four games Embiid has not played in, Drummond has put up a double-double in each of them. He also hit two three pointers (!!) tonight (just the 23rd and 24th of his 14 year career).

Justin Edwards continued his hot streak on offensive, scoring 13 points in 17 minutes on 4-7 shooting. Meanwhile, Quentin Grimes had an off night, shooting 3-10 from the field for just 9 points in 32 minutes. Trendon Watford had little positive impact on the game, recording a team worst -15. VJ Edgecombe (18 points) had his highest offensive output since the third game of the season, when he had 26 against Orlando. In limited minutes (9), Adem Bona provided some valuable defense. Jabari Walker had two points and four rebounds in 10 minutes.

The Sixers will have the weekend off - perhaps a good time for Nick Nurse to go back to the drawing board on the whole "scoring points" part of the game - before hosting the 3-8 LA Clippers Monday night. The Clippers recently received the unfortunate news that their struggling star Bradley Beal will be out for the remainder of the season with a hip fracture. To make matters worse for them, it'll be the second half of an east coast back-to-back, as they play the Celtics in a Sunday matinee the day prior. In other words, this should serve as a "get right game" for the Sixers, who are 2-4 in their past six.