PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers' winning streak has been snapped at the hands of the Indiana Pacers. Struggles against Indiana's high-octane tempo and Tyrese Maxey coming back down to earth after a 50-burger put the Sixers in a tough spot and they were unable to squeeze out the win. Their eight-game winning streak is over and they took their first In-Season Tournament loss.

Although Maxey provided some huge fourth-quarter buckets, continuing to show that he'll always fight to the end, he shot just 9-23 and had a season-high four turnovers. Bruce Brown and Andrew Nembhard stuck with him all night and their teammates showed help at the nail and at the rim each time he drove.

Maxey said that it was just one simple adjustment from Indiana that made things tougher: increasing their physicality. It wasn’t any schematic differences. They simply defended harder. However, he's not making any excuses.

“Yeah, they were extremely physical. Extremely physical,” the Sixers guard said. “But you gotta fight through those. You gotta fight through 'em, be able to fight for your spot. Coach [Nick] Nurse got on me a couple times 'cause he felt like I wasn't going to get the ball as much because of their physicality. So, yeah, I kind of got frustrated and forced a couple shots that I didn't have to because of the physicality. I gotta be better with that.”

Maxey went to his floater a few times but came away empty on each attempt. His shooting at the rim wasn’t great, either, going just 7-14 on such looks. If not for his 2-5 shooting from deep — and even five attempts is too low for someone as good as him — his shooting efficiency would have been really, really bad. Nurse concurred that the Pacers were very physical against Maxey, insinuating that his seven free-throw attempts were not nearly enough. But, like Maxey, he didn’t make any excuses.

“I thought they obviously were doing some things on the pick-and-roll, sending a little more help,” Nurse said. “I thought they were awful physical. I don't know how many feet throws he shot but it should have been three times what he shot. I thought they bumped him on a ton of those shots and they started it early and continued to do that the whole game. But you gotta adjust to the officiating on each and every night. You gotta play through those hits and score 'em anyway, not let it get you frustrated.”

Nurse, who can often be hard on Maxey because he wants to get the very best out of him, did acknowledge that he came alive at the end of the game. With an 82-game schedule, some nights just aren’t yours. Against one of the better teams in the NBA right now, Maxey, despite his sincere efforts, just wasn’t as good as he could have been.

“I think he still played good, he still played really good, I thought, most of the second half,” he said. “I just think it's basketball, man. You play 82, some nights you're gonna have it rolling. Some nights it's gonna be you're not, some nights you're gonna be somewhere in the middle of all that. Again, I thought he did come to life there and give us a chance in the fourth quarter.”

The Sixers don’t have much time to unwind from this game as they must bounce back to action the next day against the Boston Celtics. It will be a tough test for Maxey and the squad on the second night of a back-to-back after running with this Pacers team for two straight games.