PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers dropped two games to the Cleveland Cavaliers following a 117-115 loss on Friday at home. The loss dropped Philadelphia to 0-3 against the Cavs on the season and it dropped them to No. 7 in the East.
Tyrese Maxey had two tough performances against the Cavs on the week as the 30.3 points per game scorer was held to 14 points on 5-for-16 shooting in Wednesday’s loss and 22 points on 9-for-23 shooting on Friday. He also combined to shoot just 4-for-16 from deep in the two games. That is very un-Maxey-like.
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A big reason for the struggles was the defensive play of second-year guard Jaylon Tyson for Cleveland as he stepped up to the challenge of defending Maxey and finding a way to slow him down. Even when Maxey tried to run the two-man game with Joel Embiid, the Cavs jumped out with the likes of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley to slow him down that way.
“They do a good job of just, like, on all my ball screens, and they just put a lot of attention on me,” Maxey said after the loss. “So, it’s a lot of times, even when I’m coming off a ball screen with Joel and Jarrett Allen’s guarding him, I’m just stringing him out, stringing him out, stringing him out, and he stays on me, and I’m throwing it back to Joel. So I mean, that was that, and then I missed some good looks tonight.”
As of right now, it appears the Cavaliers are the toughest team for the Sixers to match up against. It has been a struggle for Philadelphia to find a way to slow them down or find any type of offensive success against Cleveland. Whether it be Donovan Mitchell, Tyson, Darius Garland, or the bigs, it has not been easy for Philadelphia to find any success against them.
It appears the Cavs are the toughest matchup for them at the moment.
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“As of right now, it looks like it,” Maxey added. “We’re 0-3 versus them. We’ll try to find different ways to figure out the double big lineup and the double guard lineup with Mitch and DG, and then sometimes Porter and Tyson, like. So, as of right now, I guess they got to be, right? We’re 0-3 versus them, and it’s been difficult for us to win, to beat them.”
The Sixers will have one more matchup with the Cavaliers in Cleveland on March 9.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Tyrese Maxey addresses his, Sixers’ struggles against the Cavaliers