PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Philadelphia 76ers fell to 3-13 on the season Sunday night following yet another blowout. After the game, Sixers’ star Tyrese Maxey took the podium, facing the media on a night everyone simply wanted to move on from.
Among the topics of conversation was the adversity the team and Maxey, as an individual, have faced during this dispiriting season. When asked how this start has helped him grow in the game of basketball, Maxey singled out the need to combat confident competition.
“I mean, [you] can’t cheat it,” Maxey said. “You got to play every single night. You got to go out there and compete every single night. Any team could beat you; we know that. When you’re down like this, and you’re in a funk, teams come in with confidence. They come in with confidence. So you have to beat them. Even if you get up ten, you get up eight; you have to beat them. You have to keep going. You have to play the entire 48 minutes of it. Those guys are playing with confidence. They hit some shots sometimes that maybe they don’t hit.”
Maxey continued, acknowledging the need to compete relentlessly until the final buzzer, and how the team has to deny the opposition easy opportunities.
“When you’re in this hole, you have to compete,” said Maxey. “It has to be a competition. It has to be a fight. It has to be a grind. Every single move, every single shot that they take, it can’t be easy. I know one time, we tipped the ball, we didn’t get it, and I let Mo Bamba get a dunk. I should at least hit him on the arm, just so I can get him to shoot free throws. That’s a foul that I have to make. And that’s just little things, man. We can’t let guys dunk on us. We can’t let guys get wide-open threes, and then we got to keep better at that.”
The “hole” Maxey discussed applies to both the game against the Clippers and the Sixers’ season to this point. While Philadelphia remains just seven games out of the third seed in the Eastern Conference, the distance is only growing each time that optimistic outlook is brought up.
For the Sixers, the time is now to throw the desperate counterpunch. While the organization’s hands are effectively locked on the trade front and due to injuries to their stars, something has got to give if Philadelphia is going to have a chance even to make the Play-In Tournament at this point.
The potential return of Paul George and Joel Embiid would go a long way toward that end, but in order for a difference to truly be made, they both would not only have to remain healthy for much of the remaining season, which has proven near impossible to this point, but they must also return to at least a sizable fraction of what they have been over the years, which could prove even more difficult.
Today should bring updates on both of the Sixers’ stars and give a glimpse into how dire Philadelphia’s situation truly is. Until such an update comes, the team will continue to slog through the season, and the feeling around the team will likely continue to fester.
