Nick Nurse said that Tyrese Maxey did not want to get subbed out in the 76ers’ win over the Spurs.
Tyrese Maxey has done it again. He scored 50 points and led the Philadelphia 76ers to a win for the third time this season. This most recent masterpiece, which featured a career-high 52 points in almost 54 minutes of action (also a career-high) in a win over the San Antonio Spurs, was most likely his most important one yet.
Maxey scored 32 points in the second half to help the Sixers overcome a brutal second quarter. He shot 19-41 overall and added seven assists, five rebounds and two steals to his stat line. Despite Victor Wembanyama patrolling the paint, Maxey took the fight right to him and won several times. With a lot of family members in the building, the Dallas-area native was extra motivated to show out — which he did.
Nick Nurse was impressed with Maxey’s performance and seemed to be okay with the star guard defying the 76ers’ substitution patterns to stay in the game.
“The biggest thing is he did not wanna come out. I tried to sub him out a couple of times in the rotation and he just kept saying, ‘Coach, I’m good.’ He really wanted to give us a shot to try and win it,” Nurse told reporters. “And obviously, 53 minutes is a lot but he was determined to try to help us get a win tonight…It’s as fast as I’ve seen him in a while. He really was turning on the jets a lot, I thought, and making things happen.”
Tyrese Maxey told Nick Nurse not to sub him out in 76ers’ win vs. Spurs
Joel Embiid and Kyle Lowry were both held out of this game for load-management purposes and Tobias Harris missed his third straight game with a knee injury, leaving Maxey with a huge responsibility. Kelly Oubre Jr. had a nice game, scoring 26 points, but Maxey needed to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Maxey told reporters after the win that the importance of this game was not lost on the 76ers. The playoffs are right around the corner and Philly may have to make it through the play-in tournament. He played well over 50 minutes for the first time in his career to make sure he was on the court as much as possible.
“I said it like four or five games ago. We know how important these games are,” Maxey said. “It’s playoff time, postseason time. I didn’t want to let us lose. I just wanted to do whatever I could, exert all my energy. And I can live with the result after that. No matter how tired, no matter how sore, I wanted to go out there and try to help us win.”
The 76ers took the seventh seed from the Miami Heat after they lost earlier in the day to the Indiana Pacers. There’s still plenty of time left in the season for the standings to change but any help they can get themselves is huge. With the final three games of the regular season coming at home, Philly has a chance to put itself in a favorable spot.
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