Tyrese Maxey drops a playoff career-high 46 points, along with some clutch buckets to save the 76ers in Game 5 and force a Game 6.
NEW YORK — The New York Knicks stole Game 2 of their first-round series with the Philadelphia 76ers by scoring six points in 13.9 seconds. Eight days later, Tyrese Maxey did them one better, scoring seven points in 17.3 seconds to send Game 5 to overtime, where Philadelphia outlasted New York and avoided elimination.
Maxey was incredible in that Game 2 loss. He was more incredible Tuesday, totaling 46 points in another wild game at Madison Square Garden, a 112-106 victory for the Sixers, who trail 3-2 with both teams having pulled rabbits out of their hats.
Here are some numbers, notes and film as the Sixers head to Philadelphia for Game 6 on Thursday (9 ET, TNT).
1. Maxey has his moment at the end of regulation
This looked like another game where Joel Embiid and the Sixers didn’t have enough gas in the tank down the stretch. After the Knicks scored on four straight possessions, Philly was down six with 28.9 seconds left.
Two nights earlier, the Sixers struggled to get into their offense in clutch situations. But on Tuesday there was no hesitation, no trying to force the ball to Embiid in the post and no waiting for double-teams to arrive.
Maxey came from the backcourt, caught Nicolas Batum’s inbounds pass at the midcourt line and immediately dribbled to his left, using an Embiid screen to get Miles McBride off the ball. He pulled up and Mitchell Robinson lunged to contest.
But Maxey hesitated, drew contact from Robinson and drained a tough 3-pointer as he leaned to his left. He converted the ensuing free throw to make it a two-point game.
Josh Hart then left the door open by splitting a pair of free throws with 15.3 left.
Down three, the Sixers were out of timeouts. McBride was initially denying Maxey in the backcourt but allowed him to get the ball from Embiid with 14 seconds on the clock. Embiid jogged forward and set another screen for Maxey to go right this time just across the midcourt line.
Robinson initially had his feet on the Knicks logo at midcourt, several feet beyond the 3-point line. But as Maxey came off the screen, he backed up, giving Maxey enough space to launch an audacious, 35-foot pull-up that tied the game with 8.1 seconds left.
MAXEY'S LOGO 3 TO SEND IT TO OT INSIDE MSG 🤯🔥 https://t.co/NQDh0CBirA pic.twitter.com/cNbHpYWMsi
— NBA (@NBA) May 1, 2024
The Knicks did have timeouts left but chose not to use them, and Batum blocked Jalen Brunson’s shot for the win. Maxey was amped and the Sixers were, somehow, still alive.
2. Embiid makes big defensive plays in OT
But the game was not over. The Knicks scored five points on their first two possessions of overtime by putting Embiid into pick-and-rolls with Brunson.
Embiid was seemingly running on fumes, having played a little less than 43 minutes in regulation and needing to stay on the floor for all of overtime because the Sixers have been killed in this series (minus-63 points per 100 possessions) when he’s sat.
The reigning Kia NBA MVP had a triple-double (19 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists) but shot just 7-for-19 (36.8%) and committed nine turnovers.
Brunson had been attacking him all night. The Sixers mostly had Embiid at the level of the screen on pick-and-rolls and that mostly didn’t work.
But after those two Brunson buckets, they fought back within one. Embiid then made three big defensive plays in a row:
- He contested Josh Hart at the rim on a fast break, a play that resulted in a Kelly Oubre Jr. dunk to give the Sixers the lead.
- On the Knicks’ next possession, Embiid got out to the 3-point line to prevent a Brunson pullup, stayed with his drive and stripped him.
- On the next possession, Embiid stayed with another Brunson drive and blocked his shot out of bounds.
Suddenly, Embiid turned from a defensive liability to a defensive anchor.
“You guys have seen him play before and do those things,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said. “It just didn’t seem like that was going to appear tonight. Obviously, he was not feeling great. It was a tough game for him. But he found a way.
“It was good that he was able to dig deep, able to dig down and do that.”
3. Sixers make a switch … and another switch
The Sixers took back the lead with an Oubre layup that bounced around the rim and managed to drop through the net.
And then, on the fly, they somehow crafted a new defensive game plan.
As Brunson brought the ball up the floor with Oubre guarding him, Embiid nudged Batum, directing him to guard Isaiah Hartenstein, who was setting all these screens for Brunson. If Embiid wasn’t guarding the screener (and was instead guarding Hart), he couldn’t be pulled into the action.
Brunson still wanted Embiid, so Hartenstein called for Hart to come set the screen. But Batum and Embiid switched again, so Batum was again guarding the screener.
Hart then waived for Hartenstein to go back up and set the screen, but just then Brunson started to make a move on Oubre, so Hartenstein remained on the baseline.
That first move didn’t go anywhere, so Brunson backed out and again went at Oubre one-on-one. He seemingly got by him, but Oubre was able to contest his floater from behind and the Sixers had another critical stop.
The Sixers went to a zone late in the fourth quarter, seemingly searching for answers against a player (Brunson) who’s averaged 46.7 points over the last three games. The Sixers won two of the three and lost Game 4 by five points, so it’s not like their current scheme is killing them.
But did they stumble upon a new defensive game plan as they extended the series by the thinnest of margins?
Having Embiid guard Hart would have Hart setting more screens for Brunson. It’s the pre-switching (as often as they can) that could keep a more mobile defender in front of Brunson as much as possible.
4. The Hart break gives Knicks easy baskets
The Knicks ranked last in pace this season, averaging just 96 possessions per 48 minutes. This series has been much slower than that, with both teams averaging 91.1 per 48 (second slowest of the eight first-round series).
That doesn’t mean that the Sixers don’t have to get back in transition, because the Knicks have Hart, the one-man fast break.
Hart is that guy who will get the ball in the backcourt and go full speed to the rim until somebody stops him. Sometimes, nobody does and Hart gets a layup.
Sometimes, a defender gets in front of him in time. But Hart has become a terrific playmaker, and his relentlessness on the break will also get his teammates good looks from the perimeter. As the Knicks opened the second quarter on an 18-2 run, he assisted on two straight transition 3s, one from OG Anunoby and another from McBride:
With Bojan Bogdanovic done for the series, the Knicks played just seven guys on Tuesday, and Hart played all 53 minutes.
5. Down to the wire
The Inside crew runs out of superlatives for Tyrese Maxey's 46-point outburst in Game 5.
Four of the five games in this series have been within three points in the last three minutes. The Knicks are up 3-2, but the Sixers have outscored them 534-532 over the five games.
Philadelphia can view Game 5 as a win (though it would have been a loss if Hart made both free throws) on a night when it wasn’t at its best. They missed some layups and some wide-open 3-pointers.
“I don’t think we played great,” Nurse said. “All it was was guts.”
They’ll have Game 6 at home on Thursday.
The league has play-by-play data going back to the 1996-97 season. Since then, the record for clutch games (those that were within five in the last five) in a playoff series is six. This series could get there with another couple of thrillers.
That would be sweet.
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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