Doc Rivers addresses Tyrese Maxey’s struggles in Sixers’ Game 3 loss
PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers were able to pick up an impressive win up in Boston to begin this semifinal series with the Celtics, but since then, it has been all Cs.
The Celtics were able to get home-court advantage back in their favor with a 114-102 win over the Sixers on Friday as they did all of the little things needed to get the job done. Boston grabbed all of the loose balls, they were grabbing critical offensive rebounds, and they were able to break Philadelphia’s spirit with the hustle plays.
Tyrese Maxey had another subpar game against the Celtics as he shot just 4-for-16 on the night. He has scored 13 points in back-to-back games since scoring 26 in the Game 1 win as it has been a bit of a struggle for Philadelphia since Joel Embiid returned.
Coach Doc Rivers was asked what the Sixers have to do to get him going and he kept it pretty simple.
“Get him the ball more,” he said. “He’s gotta get the ball more. I got on him in the first quarter. There were two or three times where he had the ball and gave it up.”
Maxey is so critical to what this team wants to do. He is so important to Philadelphia’s offensive game plan as the third scorer next to James Harden and Embiid and he hasn’t been able to really get going.
In his defense, he hasn’t gotten a lot of opportunities, but he has to go get the ball.
“One time I think Jalen (McDaniels) had it at the top and he (Maxey) just stood in the corner,” said Rivers. “I asked him if that was Kobe Bryant, you think Kobe’s standing? No, he’s gonna come get the ball and you’re one of our scorers. You gotta act like that all the time. In his defense, it’s hard. It really is. He doesn’t get the ball enough and we have to get him more involved.”
When asked if the Celtics do anything different, Maxey doesn’t think so, but he just wants to get back to doing his thing.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I mean, they play, they switch, they do a lot of different things. They do a lot of different things, but I mean, the first two games I played pretty successful. I played pretty good. I missed some shots in the fourth.”
