Is Tyrese Maxey Becoming a Good Defender?
Is Tyrese Maxey Becoming a Good Defender?
Once seen as his greatest weakness, Maxey’s defense is starting to give his opponents a lot of problems.
Tyrese Maxey made a mistake. Up five with just under 30 seconds remaining, he gambled for a steal on the inbound pass thrown by Vasilije Micić and missed, leaving him behind Tre Mann, who had a wide-open lane to the basket now in front of him. It should have been two easy points for the Hornets. Instead, Maxey put the finishing touches on a much-needed Sixers win.
Watching the 2024 Sixers post-Joel Embiid injury is all about the silver linings. You have to enjoy things like Ricky Council IV emerging and Kyle Lowry being a pest to every single opponent to endure a team that’s 6-16 since Embiid first tweaked his knee in Indiana.
The latest silver lining? That would be the defensive improvements of one Tyrese Maxey.
The word on the Sixers’ All-Star point guard entering this season was that he just had to be passable on defense. The defenders surrounding him were good enough and big enough that all Maxey needed to do was get out of the liability zone, as Steve Jones Jr. would say. Just keep yourself from being the guy that every opponent hunts on switches late in playoff games, and you’re golden. It’s the advice that’s been given to every diminutive star guard in the NBA, from Trae Young to Steph Curry.
Funnily enough, Maxey was actually pegged as a superb defender coming out of Kentucky in 2020. Just go back and read the scouting reports from that year (which I agreed with at the time).
“Excellent on-ball defender with a strong frame and long arms. He plays hard, shifts his feet, and flips his hips to move well laterally and defend pick-and-rolls.” — Kevin O’Connor in The Ringer’s 2020 NBA Draft Guide.
“Love his potential as an on-ball defender. Plays really hard on that end, and uses his length and strength to really bother opponents. Attacks with forward jumps into offensive players’ bodies, then can slide to stay in front and recover.” — Sam Vecenie in The Athletic’s 2020 NBA Draft Guide.
We were all looking at the same thing — a point guard with roughly a 6’6” or 6’7” wingspan, lightning quick feet, and a love for the weight room. At a mere 6’2”, Maxey is short by NBA standards, but the idea was that his length, strength and burst would more than make up for that. This currently manifests most in his shot blocking, where Maxey is one of very few little guys who can credibly protect the rim.
The only two players 6’2” and shorter who average more than Maxey’s 0.5 blocks per game this season are Ja Morant, who’s played in only nine games, and Fred VanVleet — who infamously gets credited for blocks when he actually just strips the ball off a player’s knee. (Those should be counted as steals, and it’s box score malpractice that they’re not.)
While blocked shots are insanely valuable plays and a true arrow in Maxey’s quiver, just tallying up raw box score stats does not a good defender make. Estimated Plus-Minus still rates him as a slight negative on defense (his -0.7 Defensive EPM is sandwiched right between Steph Curry and Kyrie Irving) – though just using all-in-one metrics is an extremely flawed way to evaluate defense too, in my opinion.
There’s only one way to really know if someone’s actually a good defender — you gotta watch the games, man. Not just highlights. Not just the very end of each possession. You have to track someone and watch how each of their actions affect the defense’s success. Do that, and you’ll know a good defender when you see one. According to Maxey’s coach, he’s crossed that threshold in 2024.
“He’s gotten way better at getting into the basketball [on defense],” Nick Nurse said on Friday. “When they’re running screen and rolls, he’s over the top of it on his own. He’s hard to screen. He’s been excellent too on defensive rebounding, not necessarily getting them, but preventing other people from getting them.”
Nurse is right that Maxey’s on-ball pressure is where he can shine brightest on defense. Most small guards are liable to get bullied out of the way on drives and post-ups. Maxey can stand his ground. He’s bulked up in the weight room. He’s learned to embrace physicality and has great hands to knock the ball free. Maxey pounces on slow and hesitant decision makers. If you attack him without purpose, he’s going to take the ball away from you.
Maxey has an appetite for making big plays on defense. He wants to rip the ball from someone’s dribble. He wants to jump passing lanes to kick start a fast break. Naturally, the way to beat him on defense is to punish his playmaking desire.
Contrary to the “just do your job” role prescribed to most small guards, Maxey gambles for steals and deflections. Thus, more decisive drivers and shooters can put him in a world of hurt. They recognize Maxey getting himself outside of the play either due to a wonky path he took for a steal or a wayward jab at the ball, and use it to create space for a good shot.
Additionally, though Nurse credited his young point guard as someone who plays bigger than his listed height, Maxey’s 6’2” stature inherently limits his defense. Bigger wings like Tatum still find success hunting him on switches in the post. His shot contests don’t really bother the eyes of taller shooters. And even though Nurse is right that he’s had some stellar box outs of late, Maxey’s also been liable to give up a crucial rebound here and there. Maxey is rarely doing something wrong in these plays. Being small in the NBA is just that hard.
(Don’t worry, I’m also gonna throw in a couple awesome box outs Maxey had in the last few games because they’re 100% what Nurse was thinking about when he gave that quote).
In the Friday Mailbag on The Ricky, I was asked if Maxey ever had an All-Defense selection in his future. My answer was a definitive no — but it largely has nothing to do with Maxey himself. Here’s the entire list of 2023-24 NBA players who have previously made an All-Defense team while standing at 6’2” or shorter: Chris Paul, Mike Conley, Patrick Beverley. That’s it. Bump the requirements up to 6’4” and the only players you add are Marcus Smart, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday. Being named one of the NBA’s 10 best defenders while also being one of its shortest players is an incredibly difficult hurdle to mount.
Maxey is not at that level right now, and likely won’t reach it due to simple math. And that’s totally fine. His willingness to get physical and his superb shot blocking have helped him net out as a slight positive for the Sixers on defense this year. His ability to completely blow up a possession outweighs the few times a game where his gambles and lack of size hurt them. Not to mention, his aggressive, “gotta make a play” style will look a whole lot better when Embiid is behind him to clean up any risks of his that don’t work out.
Ultimately, Maxey is becoming a much better defender, as most great players do at a certain point in their careers. He’s not an elite stopper who can push the Sixers’ defense to a new echelon, but he does what’s asked of him quite well, and makes outlier plays that few of his teammates can replicate.
That block on Tre Mann to seal the win over the Hornets really was the perfect encapsulation of Maxey’s 2023-24 defense — he gambled when he shouldn’t have, but he saved it with an incredible athletic play, a recovery that no one else on the floor could have made. Every guy who makes the NBA is an absurd, 99th percentile athlete. But here in year four, Maxey’s learned that even by NBA standards, he’s an elite athlete. His combination of length, strength, and quickness is a weapon on the defensive end of the floor, and he’s attacking any opponent that underestimates how in danger they are of losing the ball when No. 0 is near them.
Maxey is still a flawed defender, but with the prime of his career just around the corner, the good he does on that end now far outweighs the bad.
Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.
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