The Philadelphia 76ers are heading back home from the west coast with five new victories. The Sixers pulled off the most impressive win of their five-game road trip (and one of their best of the season) with a win over the Sacramento Kings despite Joel Embiid and James Harden sitting out.
The Sixers came back from a 21-point deficit in roughly 10 minutes of game time across the second and third quarters and hung on for the win thanks largely to a great night from Tyrese Maxey. Doc Rivers gave plenty of praise to his team for staying tough and securing a huge win.
“Everybody who played did something to help us win the game tonight,” Rivers said. “We were down 21 points and all we talked about was winning the game. Didn’t panic. Every timeout, ‘We're gonna win the game. Just hang in there.’ Came out at the beginning of the 3rd [quarter] and grabbed the lead. We felt we had to get the game close, they were just so comfortable. Tyrese just throughout the game, just kept attacking. I thought he struggled until we subbed him and brought him back in. Once he came back in, he was great.”
Maxey was the main star tonight, scoring 32 points and dishing six assists. With 17 points each from Tobias Harris, Montrezl Harrell and Georges Niang, 15 points and seven assists from Shake Milton and 14 points and five assists from De'Anthony Melton, it was a well-rounded team effort.
When asked how the Sixers were able to rally for the win, Maxey said that the solution was to simply slow down the Kings' fiery offense. Doing that allowed them to get to work through the numerous players that found a groove.
“It was mainly we got some stops, finally, and then once you start getting those stops, you can get out and run, you can play freely,” the Sixers star explained. “And once you can play freely, you got a lot of different guys that can do a lot of different things. Everybody was making shots. Shake and Georges off the bench played well, even [Paul Reed] came in and gave us big minutes. Even Tobias started out hot, then he decided he was gonna foul out.”
The Sixers are now in possession of the second seed in the Eastern Conference. Going on this win streak following an embarrassing loss makes it all the more sweeter for Philly.
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