Ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers matchup in Portland against the Trail Blazers, Tyrese Maxey was named the NBA’s Eastern Conference Player of the Week. The Sixers’ guard beat out other notable names like Jalen Brunson (NYK), Trae Young (ATL), Donovan Mitchell (CLE) and more for the honor.
Maxey helped to lead the Sixers to a 3-0 record during the week with wins against the San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, and the Utah Jazz. He averaged 32.3 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 8.7 assists during those games. Maxey also shot 39.4% on threes, making 4.3 per game.
It’s not just offensively that Maxey continues to thrive. Defensively, Maxey has seen notable improvement all season long, and that trend continued this week. It’s significantly more difficult to calculate defensive impact purely with the box score, but Maxeys’ average of 2.7 steals per game certainly speaks volumes.
Additionally, Maxey’s defensive rating remained directly on course with his season average (113.2) despite facing difficult matchups with Chris Paul, Derrick White, and the tag team of Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson.
Every year since the Sixers drafted him in 2020, Tyrese Maxey has seen drastic improvement. Often, he has improved his shoot, scoring, or both. This season, it became difficult to imagine what area he would improve on next or if he could even do so.
While some thought perhaps his facilitation would be the top area of improvement, and in the interest of fairness, he has looked improved in this area when the team is healthy and is discussing the art of facilitation at a much higher level than years previous, it’s been his defensive advancements that have truly stood out.
The Sixers now sit at 12-17 on the season with one more game before the new year. Considering they previously were 3-14 before this most recent stretch, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic for the season, especially if Tyrese Maxey is able to keep up this level of play.
