Tyrese Maxey curled around a screen and unleashed a 3-pointer as the Knicks’ Josh Hart closed out to no avail. Swish. A possession later, Maxey hit from deep again. And the next possession? Again. Not bad for a player who, about a half-hour earlier, wasn’t even officially active.
Maxey (illness) and superstar running mate Joel Embiid (knee) needed little time Monday night to answer the intense suspense around how fit they were to play in a crucial Game 2 at Madison Square Garden. They combined for 69 points, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the late-game heroics of the Knicks, who escaped with a 104-101 win to take a 2-0 lead in the first-round playoff series.
Maxey’s back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers put his 76ers up 9-0 at the 9:48 mark of the first quarter, setting the tone for a 35-point performance. Embiid, the reigning NBA MVP, got off to a similarly stellar start, scoring 12 of his 34 points and grabbing eight of his 11 rebounds in the opening period.
Both players entered the Garden listed as questionable, with coach Nick Nurse calling them true game-time decisions before they warmed up. Maxey’s issue popped up suddenly. The All-Star point guard reported he wasn’t feeling well Monday morning and missed shootaround. Nurse speculated less than two hours before tip-off that Maxey could be compromised even if he did play.
But Maxey played 44 minutes, repeatedly using his signature speed to create separation for shots or book toward the basket as OG Anunoby and Miles McBride took turns guarding him. He scored 15 points in the fourth quarter but failed to convert on a would-be go-ahead lay-up with six seconds remaining as Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein came up with a game-saving block.
Embiid’s injury status came as less of a shock. Monday marked his eighth game since returning from an early-February surgery on his left knee. The 7-foot center has appeared hobbled multiple times since then, including Game 1, when he grabbed that left knee after finishing an alley-oop dunk. Embiid missed the final 2:37 of Saturday’s second quarter but returned for the start of the third.
On Monday, Embiid moved around well, sought contact and crashed the boards. He ran the floor on a transition lay-in with 7:14 left in the third, drawing a foul from Jalen Brunson as he finished the basket. He elevated on an emphatic fourth-quarter block on a driving McBride. He coaxed a foul out of Hartenstein, who was pressed up against him, and finished a tough 21-footer. And Embiid welcomed the hostility of a sold-out Garden crowd, at one point gesturing for fans to continue as they chanted a very particular expletive before his name.
The 76ers are the East Conference’s No. 7 seed, but they went 31-8 in the regular season with Embiid, who averaged career highs with 34.7 points and 5.6 assists per game to go along with 11.0 rebounds. That .800 winning percentage over the course of a full season would have made the Sixers the NBA’s best team. Even in a losing effort, the Sixers offered a reminder of how dangerous a productive Embiid and Maxey can make them.
