The 76ers are Tyrese Maxey’s team 😤 + Biggest keys to Lakers’ STRONG start 🔑 | NBA Today

The 76ers are Tyrese Maxey’s team 😤 + Biggest keys to Lakers’ STRONG start 🔑 | NBA Today

It’s our first show since last Tuesday, so we’ll catch up on everything you may have missed while eating some turkey. Starting with the big three in Philly who played their first game together last night. Let’s take a look. You got Tyrese Maxi, Jaylen Johnson. They’ll be the stars. You’ll see. Embiid is back. But this one on the steel here. Alexander Walker finds Jaylen Johnson for the slam. This looks familiar. kind of trying to recreate the D-Wade LeBron. Yeah, it is a thing now all of a sudden. Everyone’s trying to do you’re getting old if you’re Dwe and LeBron. Jumping to the fourth. Sixers force a turnover here. Paul George and outlets to Maxi. He gets the hoop in the harm. Later in the fourth, Maxi on the drive. He finishes and one. Maxi keeping Philly in this one. 12 seconds to go. Philly down three. Dominic Barlo misses the free throw. Paul George gets the offensive rebound. Kicks it to Maxi. Three ball. Bang. Maxi ties it. Third career tying go ahead field goal in the final 10 seconds of the fourth quarter. Overtime for Maxi. So we’re headed to OT. Just over a minute to go here now in the overtime period. Tyresese Maxi going back to work. Drives spins. Float game is good. rattles on long arms. He’s shooting over there. Yep. Takes the lead. Maxi had 44 on the night. 5 seconds left in OT. Johnson the drive. Gets the foul. Better get used to this guy right here. He’s going to tie it at the free throw line. Nails both. We go to double OT. Hawks down one. Nil Alexander Walker catches it. Pump fake then knocks down the three. Alexander Walker with 34 in this one. Worth every penny. You just call him naw at this point. I like now Johnson catches it at the top. He knocks down the three. Hawks go up three. Later in the fourth, Hawks trying to close it out. Johnson in the corner. Somebody guard him. Gets it to out on him. My Johnson finishes with 41 and 14. Here’s Joel Embiid after the game. I think he’s showing that I would I would do anything just to play one game of basketball. So, you know, I do feel bad. Obviously the minutes that he has to play, the load that he has to handle. I’ve been there. Um, you know, I know how it feels, but you know, you know, you just got to, you know, trust, have to trust in, you know, what you do and in God and, you know, be okay with the fact that whatever happens happens if All right, we welcome in a trio of senior writers and reporters that I’m surrounded by here. Of course, Ramona Shelburn, the Hall of Famer Mark Spears, and of course, Tim McMahon. And I’m George Sedano in for Malikica Andrews today. So Ramona, this is the first time we’ve seen Embiid, Paul, George, Maxi, and this whole group play together. What’s the feeling around this team right now? Well, I think the feeling is that this is Tyrese Maxi’s team and over the summer it started to turn that page because people just frankly didn’t know when Paul George and Joel Embiid would be able to play and if when they did play, what they would be able to give them. And so the Sixers had to pivot. And it turns out Tyrese Maxi is really good and he is the franchise now. And if Joel Embiid and Paul George can see this as an opportunity for them to manage their minutes, for them to manage the load on their bodies, for them to be healthy in the playoffs when they want to be healthy and not necessarily a challenge to overcome the the reframing of this in their minds. You know, Paul George is a max player. Joel Embiid Max player. He was the franchise. He’s still there and he’s still really good, but he has to see this as an opportunity and not a challenge to work through. And I think it’s pretty clear that Paul George has gotten there. You know, you heard him yesterday basically say, “Hey, when I’m out there, I’m playing for Maxi. He’s our guy.” Said, you know, he’s inspired by him. Philly was never Paul George’s city. It was never his franchise. Joel Embiid is the one who a recent MVP. And you know, everything in Philly has revolved around him for years. That’s no longer the case. This is Tyrese Maxis’s team and Joel Embiid, max contract MVP and all that is now a complimentary player. Can we put some respect on the Hawks name? I mean like we talking about the Sixers. Why aren’t we talking about the winners? Well, cuz we’re talking about egos is what that’s the thing. That’s what we’re talking about. But but you are absolutely right. We should be talking about the Hawks. Jaylen Johnson, he’s the guy on We talk about guys on a team. He’s the guy. The MVP of the Eastern Conference right now. Well, I don’t know that. might have something to say there would like a word. There’s no Trey Young and he’s the only person in the Eastern Conference and only second person in the league next to Joker to average over 22 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists right now. Nas, you mentioned, is averaging a career-high 20.1. This team is playing fast. They got ball movement. Their 13 wins this month or in November was the most in 11 seasons. And also they had 10 I mean 13 wins through 21 games and 10 wins in November is the most in 11 years as well. So hey man they’re balling without Trey and uh curious to see what happens when Trey comes back. We all made this mistake. Okay we all said ah the east is going to stink. Who cares? Whatever. It’s all about the west. The east is good. Can we at least agree on that? The top of the west is much stronger. The east is much deeper. And there are teams in the west we thought were going to be good. Clippers, Grizzlies, Mavericks on Jaylen Johnson’s name now. No, he is he is an ascending star, ascending superstar. No question. Lakers weekend that started Friday night hosting a familiar face across the street. Lakers Mavs AD back in the house having some fun before the tip. There’s Luca. We’ll start with Luca on the drive. Finds a cutting LeBron for the reverse. He’s a lob threat still at eight. Got to be the first 40-year-old to catch a reverse alley. Later in the first, Donic with some fakes, hits the three over Clay. That is just not nice. Klay Thompson’s 34. Don’t do him like that. Hit him on the back. Megan there, too. Hit him on the backside. There we go. AD driving down the lane for the slam. Later in the second, Davis the put back on the offensive rebound. He finished with 12 points in this one. He looked really good, but just didn’t play a lot of minutes. Here’s Austin Reeves getting into the act. I mean, wow. Come on. He’s being rude to Clay, too. That might have been a hook. Under five to play. Lakers up six. Gabe Vincent tosses inside to Aton for the finish. And the Lakers going to full run at three Allstars in the Clippers Arena. Eighton finished with 17. Lakers get that win. Then on Sunday, the Lakers are back home against the Pels. No LeBron. Luca will start this off. Nice. Little mid-range contested jumper. The Pelicans are it’s it’s hard. It’s hard to watch these guys. I’m not going to lie. It’s not hard to watch Luca hit that three. Having some fun with DeAndre Jordan on the bench after that one in the second. Austin Reeves from the logo. Come on. That’s when you know the confidence is flowing. Let’s pull up from the logo. Later in the quarter, Reeves gets inside, goes high off the window. Reeves finished with 33 in this one. Second round pick, huh? And then in the third, Luca hits a step back and one. Donic finished with 34 points, 12 boards, seven assists as the Lakers get another win. Luca and Austin Reeves have been on a tear. They’re just the second starting back court since starters were first tracked back in 1977 to score 30 plus points in three straight games along with get this Gail Goodrich and Jerry West back in 1972. So Tim, the Lakers have now won seven straight. What’s been the key here for that? I mean, Austin Reeves is playing at an AllNBA level, and it’s not just right now. Like, they’ve got to get him signed, and hey, that might be a Supermax conversation the way that he’s rolling. But Luca has a longterm co-star in place. This is a duo that they can build around for years to come. And we saw Luca and Kyrie, how that clicked. They went to the finals. He’s got that same kind of chemistry with this guy, Austin Reeves, who is absolutely a bonafide star. Mark, what about DeAndre Aton’s contributions thus far? You know, at the beginning of the season, I was in this bus by myself. You still are to me. I I’m still not there yet. I’m not riding what you just said. Hey, man. 16 points a game. He’s second in the NBA in field goal percentage at 71, 8.6 rebounds, dropped 22 and 12 on New Orleans and four blocks. He’s been great for this team. He’s back in the winning situation. I think LeBron and the Lucas and being in LA and, you know, Ramona will mention the contract. Sure, that’s motivation, but he’s playing great basketball for a team that he has to play great basketball for. There was a real debate amongst the Lakers in their front office this summer of Brook Lopez or DeAndre Aiden and for a while it was going to be Brook Lopez because DeAndre Aton wasn’t available yet. Um he there’s a late sort of a late buyout that he did in Portland and then there was a spirited debate but they were the clubhouse leaders for Brook Lopez. He didn’t like the instability that was going on with LeBron James. He wasn’t quite sure in his role. And then the Lakers pivoted on to DeAndre when Brook Lopez signed with the Clippers. Think about how different this team would be without DeAndre Aton without that lob threat. And Brook Lopez obviously hadn’t had that great of a year for the Clippers. No one has for the Clippers. They’re 55. But you know, I I think he is making he’s done a lot more than I would have thought at the beginning of the year. You’re right. You were in the bus alone. And I think he is looked around and going, “Wow, if I just catch lobs from Luca Don, he’s back in a winning situation. he can really thrive in this spot. I I will say they’re 11 and one against teams with under 500 records. So this this winning streak you they get credit for that, but they are schedule is what it is, but it has not been the tougher part of their schedule just yet. We’ll see that in the second half of the season. So we’ll see. But speaking of the Lakers, let’s welcome in senior reporter who covers the Lakers for us, Dave McMinnon. So Dave, LeBron missed last night’s game against the Pels with a left foot injury. Management, they’ll call it. Uh what is the status for tonight’s game as they host the Suns? Yeah, George, we’ll get the official status at 100 pm Pacific, but all indications out of last night is that LeBron will be available to tonight to play against the Phoenix Suns. And this is the start of a tougher stretch for the Lakers, five straight opponents with an above 500 record. So, having LeBron in the mix will be important. I talked to JJ Renick last night about the back-to-back scenario and why LeBron wasn’t available. would this be the status going forward that with the 10 remaining backtobacks after Sunday Monday would this also be the case and JJ said no both the coaching staff and LeBron have hope that LeBron will be able to be available in backto-backs moving forward just they need to ramp him up there because they look at the last week or so basically as LeBron’s training camp because he missed all of the real training camp and the first 14 games with sciatica injury in the meantime you have Luca and Austin Reeves just dominating offensively and I talked to Austin after the game and I was looking at his game log as the game was going on because the Lakers were up by like 25 most of the night against the Pelicans and I was like you haven’t had a bad game all all year and he said uh you know what I’m not you know being it wasn’t false modesty but he’s like I really think I’ve only had about five good games so if thus far is only Austin Reed is only having five good games if he starts putting together good games by his judgment he could get to another level as the season goes goes on. Well, it’s funny, Dave. Uh, I did the game against Minnesota where he hit the gamewinner and I asked him and he said, “Well, I did miss 14 shots.” So, to your point, he’s certainly keeping score on how efficient he is out there. Dave, thanks for the time as always, man. Appreciate it. [Music]

On NBA Today, Tim MacMahon, Jorge Sedano, Ramona Shelburne and Marc J. Spears weigh in on Tyrese Maxey’s dominant season and the Los Angeles Lakers’ strong start to the season.

0:00 What is the 76ers feeling and identity now that they are mostly healthy?
8:00 What have been the biggest keys to the Lakers’ fast start this season?
10:14 Update on LeBron James
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