Doc Rivers Discusses Tyrese Maxey’s Injury Recovery

After receiving word on Tyrese Maxey's injury diagnoses, Doc Rivers discusses the next steps.

The Philadelphia 76ers have been dealing with key injuries all throughout their first stretch of the 2022-2023 NBA season. Not only has Joel Embiid missed a few games due to a non-COVID illness, but the star guard James Harden went down with a tendon strain in his foot, which has him sidelined for at least a month.

On Friday night, Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey was the next starter to go out with a significant injury. During the second quarter of the matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks, Maxey left the game and never returned. After getting ruled out with a foot injury, the Sixers received positive news when Maxey’s initial X-rays came back negative.

Unfortunately, an MRI on Saturday told a different story. Maxey was diagnosed with a small fracture in his foot, according to a Sixers official. The third-year guard will be re-evaluated in two weeks and could miss up to four weeks, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. 

“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Sixers coach Doc Rivers. “I don’t know if that’s good news or not. Honestly, it could’ve been worse. I guess we could have looked at it that way. He’s just gonna be out, and we’re gonna have to deal with that. You don’t want any guys out.”

Considering Maxey’s established himself as one of the hardest workers on the Sixers’ roster, the young guard enters a rare situation where he’s not able to physically put in the amount of work he typically does. 

“It’ll be interesting,” Rivers explained. “I don’t know what the rehab is. My guess is a boot is always a rehab these days. It’ll be interesting how he can keep himself off the floor — especially the first week. My guess is he hasn’t been off the floor for a week in a long time.”

In Rivers’ eyes, the situation will be a lesson for both the team and Maxey. As the Sixers want to get their rising star back on the floor as soon as possible, they also don’t want to press their luck and risk Maxey pushing his limits too far and creating another setback for himself.

“The sooner we can get him out there, you know he’s gonna be out there,” Rivers finished. “Then try to hold him back to not re-injure himself. This would probably be a learning lesson for all of us.” 

As Maxey deals with his first significant setback as an NBA player, there will be a lot of ups and downs over the next few weeks. While the Sixers surely dodged a bullet, as Maxey won’t miss multiple months worth of action, they have a lot to make up for with Maxey and Harden out of the mix for some time. 

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.