Sixers need more from Tyrese Maxey to compete with Celtics

Nick Nurse flashed an awkward smile when asked about Tyrese Maxey’s evolution into a premier scoring option in the NBA.

Maxey scored 21 points in Game 1, seven fewer than his regular-season average of 28.3. He shot 8 for 20 from the field and used his speed to generate eight assists. It wasn’t enough to stay competitive with the Celtics, who rolled to a 123-91 blowout victory.

Philadelphia needs more production from the All-Star guard moving forward, Nurse said.

“I’m just smiling because I’m going to give you the same answer I’ve given you about 17 times over the last two years,” Nurse said. “He’s got to be more aggressive and take more shots.”

“He’s just got to find them, wherever they are. If it’s transition, if it’s deeper, if it’s more probing, if it’s fadeaways, if it’s turnarounds, if it’s post-ups or whatever it is. I just want him to continue to raise that level of shot attempts and aggressiveness.”

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla was pleased with his team’s defensive effort in Game 1. Derrick White started the game guarding Maxey, but the Celtics also experimented with putting longer defenders such as Jayson Tatum and Jordan Walsh on Maxey at times.

“He’s a great player, you’re never going to shut him down,” Mazzulla said. “You have to throw multiple bodies, multiple coverages, you have to guard him one-on-five. I thought our level of connectivity, the five people involved on almost every possession was really important, so I thought we did a good job with that.”

Mazzulla expects a better effort from Tuesday night. The 76ers shot 4 for 23 from 3-point range, a stat they are unlikely to duplicate. The Celtics won the rebounding battle and pressured the 76ers by getting good looks in transition.

“First and foremost, we’ve got to play a lot better in a lot of areas,” Nurse said. “That’s the biggest thing. We gave up way too much in transition. Gave a lot of iso baskets up. Just didn’t for whatever reason score well enough, shoot well enough. We’ve got to be better schematically, we’ve got to be more solid on the ball. It’s not just a tweak and adjustment somewhere. We’ve got to play a lot better.”

Close Calls

There were several Game 2 upsets Monday night.

Top-seeded Detroit lost to the Magic, tying the series. The Knicks lost against Atlanta. Anthony Edwards powered the Timberwolves to a victory against the Nuggets with a 30-point, 10-rebound double-double. Mazzulla was asked about his takeaways.

“We watched the late games, both games went close in the last three minutes, just trying to learn from the process of how different teams execute down the stretch,” Mazzulla said. “Learning as much as we can. Other than that, the most important thing is to focus on us.

“Every game takes on a life of its own. We don’t have control over that. We just have to control how you play, how you execute, and how you move on from each timeout to each timeout, each run to run, each game to game. You’ve just got to play with that consistency.”