Philadelphia 76ers high-risk, high-impact trade: The new plan with Tyrese Maxey as backup

with his own win this Thursday over the Portland Trail Blazers by 105-95The Philadelphia 76ers added their own fourth straight winall of them as visitors to the Western Conference and tied the Milwaukee Bucks with the second best record in the East: 29 wins, 16 losses.

But beyond the results, It’s the game that gets the Sixers excited, which show, by far, their best image for 2022-2023. And all this from a change suggested by Doc Rivers, as dangerous as it is positive: remove Tyrese Maxey from the starting five and use him as a sixth man.

For the third straight game, Maxey came on in Portland as a substitute, with De Anthony Melton starts in his place along with Harden, Harris, Tucker and Embiid. The reason is clear: break a Maxey-Harden duo that gave huge defensive advantages and with which it would be very difficult to compete on an equal footing with the best teams in the league.

ONE A 133-114 home loss to OKKin which Shai Gilgeous-Alexander cooked the Philadelphia guards time and time again, he seemed to end up convincing Rivers to make that change. Makes sense, if risky considering it was take away ownership of a player like Maxey who is on the riseaveraging over 20 points and with a possible All-Star future.

However, it looks like it was a big gamble, with an even bigger payoff. The new shape gave him a ideal balance in the 76erswho with Melton along with the headlines, manage to build one of the best defenses in the league.

Even without counting the dominating performance this Thursday in Portland, where they barely allowed the Blazers 6 points until Rivers started moving the bench with 5:20 left in the first quarterMelton’s lineups along with the starters allow an outstanding defensive rating of just 111.2 points per 100 possessions.

Of course, the other part of the equation was to see how Maxi adjusted to his new role as sixth man (for what looks like an ideal player). And the truth is that his was excellent: it has 53 points out of 90 minutes between the three parties, with a 20-37 field (54%). And perhaps more importantly, a +21 difference in those departments.

With this new design, everything seems to be balanced Philadelphia, without significant defects in any area. They are a strong team on defense, with unbalanced players on offense like Harden and Embiid and with points on the second unit from a special scorer like Maxey.

There’s a long way to go, but for the first time in a long time, the Sixers are making sense. However we begin to name them within the group that can get excited about the larger goals of this campaign.

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