Tyrese Maxey Saved Sixers January
Our beautiful boy is back, and somehow better than ever. Just in time really.
One of the toughest parts of the Sixers' recent seven-game losing streak -- the one that dropped them to 15-27 and had Sixers fans embracing the Tank like their name was Lori Petty -- was that it was happening in our month. January has long been hallowed among the Sixers faithful as the month where everything comes together: After a month of or two of individual slow starts, nagging injuries and stilted cohesion -- and often a brutal start to the season's schedule -- January is the month where the Sixers finally become a well-oiled machine, tearing off one win after another and vaulting the team from Same Old Sixers to Could This Finally Be the Year? It's the month that dares us to dream as big as we'll let ourselves dream, before the inevitable rude awakening of May and June.
It seemed for all the world like Sixers January was dead and buried in 2025 -- and, y'know, maybe the team along with it, that we had finally hit a Sixers season so bad that we were going to leave the first month of this year even more deflated and hopeless than we began it. And no matter what happens Friday night against the Nuggets, the Sixers will leave the month with a losing record, their first losing January of the Joel Embiid era. But they won't leave it completely feeling like losers, or with us feeling like losers for caring about them in the first place. And the biggest reason for that is Tyrese Maxey.
In the last week, Maxey has led the Sixers on what I feel comfortable calling the most unlikely four-game win streak in the history of The Process, if not the entire franchise. It would have been unlikely enough if it had been any combination of four games against anyone -- given that Joel Embiid was out for all four of them, and that the Jo-less Sixers had recently proven themselves thoroughly incapable of beating even the most lackluster and/or compromised opponents in the seven-game losing streak that had immediately preceded this rash of Ws. But the combination of all four wins coming against currently playoff-bound teams (including one against the NBA-best Cleveland Cavaliers), with the Sixers still suffering from a whole rash of injuries to their supporting cast, and even losing Paul George a quarter into the second game -- and across a pair of back to backs, which the Sixers traditionally struggle with finishing both sides of even when they get Joel for at least half of them -- makes this 4-0 run feel like an absolute Sixers January miracle.
And Tyrese Maxey has been powering the whole thing. He's averaged 33 points and seven assists across the four games, shooting 50% or better for all four, playing stout defense and making every play down the stretch we need him to make to finish off the Sixers' superior-recorded opponents (except against the Lakers, where he scored 41 through three quarters and mostly got to take the fourth off). And honestly, Tyrese had been turning a corner even through the losing parts of January -- since scoring 18 points in Embiid's most recent game for the Sixers against the Nets on Jan. 4, he's scored at least 28 points in each of his dozen games since, pulling his scoring average up to a career-best 27.1 a game.
But this Tyrese is different than even the one who bucketed his way through all those losses. This is a Tyrese who pounces early, scoring double digits in the first quarter and getting the Sixers in business right away. This is a Tyrese who is dangerous attacking at any level -- even in the mid-range, where he'd failed to prove a threat for most of the season, he's now equipped with a variety of runners and turnaround jumpers that are effective enough to not be ignorable. This is a Tyrese who bends the floor to his will, forcing opposing defenses to send extra help and tilt their entire gameplans to account for his deadliness. And most importantly, this is a Tyrese who punishes teams for doing so, either finding the right teammate to pass to at an advantage when he's doubled, or keeping his dribble alive and navigating the defense for long enough to find the holes and immediately puncture them. It's been absolutely breathtaking to watch.
He's not doing it all himself, mind you. He's been helped immeasurably by the improved play of his teammates over this stretch -- naturally, by the gravity provided by a heating-up Paul George, who had shot 45% from three in January before going down with a pinky fifth finger injury against the Bulls, and by his one reliable pick-and-pop partner all season, Guerschon Yabusele. But he's also been getting that help from Kelly Oubre Jr., who's been hustling his hair off on the boards and on perimeter defense and in transition. He's been getting it from Justin Edwards and Adem Bona, two rookies barely expected to play this season, who've raised the team's defensive ceiling with their length, athleticism and steadiness and given Tyrese a pair of new targets to work with for lobs and cuts in the half-court. And perhaps most surprisingly, he's been getting it from Eric Gordon, who most of us had written off for dead in December when it seemed like he couldn't make a three off a practice rack in an empty gym -- but who know has been providing timely three after timely three for the Sixers, shooting a blistering 49% from deep this month and helping stretch and open the floor for Maxey like no shooting guard ever quite has beside him before.
But all of it still revolves around Tyrese playing the best basketball of his season. This is the thing that had eluded his season to this point -- even when he was scoring in high volume, it never felt like it was in the flow of any coherent offense, like it was building good team habits and making the players around him more effective as a result. There were too many possessions where he dribbled endlessly to nowhere, where he missed a potential roll, lob or even pop man, where he either kept jacking threes that had increasingly little chance of going in or lost confidence and stopped shooting altogether. Now, everything he does is with purpose, with thought, with patience, and the team is exponentially stronger for it. He says he had to grow up a little bit. It certainly looks like he has.
And if he really has hit that next level with his play during this stretch, it could change everything for this team's long-term outlook. What we thought we had seen in the first three months of this season was all the reasons why we shouldn't view Tyrese Maxey as a potential franchise-leading guy for a post-Joel Embiid era that seems like it could be arriving sooner than later -- that Tyrese was too small, too limited as a passer and decision-maker, that without a world-swallowing force like Joel on the court to make things easier for him, everything would be too fundamentally difficult for him to ever be an effective first option. And while obviously four games isn't nearly a long-enough stretch to throw out the entire season that's led up to it, it's been incredibly validating to those of us who did have that belief in Tyrese coming into this season that he's shown himself capable of playing like this for an extended period, and it leading to legitimately winning basketball against (mostly) strong opponents. And this is with him being flanked by Reggie Jackson and Ricky Council IV; imagine how punishing he could be playing alongside an actual full rotation again. Perhaps this team could still be dangerous. Perhaps this could still be a real team in the first place.
Maybe this is all dreaming too big, that the now-still-just-19-27 Sixers have simply gotten some of the shooting luck and overall karma they've long been owed (and then some) for this hellish season to this point, and that the injuries will prove too much to overcome at length and they'll fall back down to earth soon. Even if so, dreaming too big has always been the point of Sixers January -- to spend it letting go of all of our doubts and insecurities with this team and just embracing the possibilities of what could be. And in that sense, Tyrese really just beat the buzzer with this month, scoring and winning and smiling enough not only to turn the Tank back around for the Sixers but to get us thinking, however briefly, that all might not be totally lost with this team. He's saved Sixers January, and maybe the Sixers in general along with it.
Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
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