Tyrese Maxey Urged to Stay Aggressive by Multiple Sixers

Over the last few seasons, Tyrese Maxey's aggressiveness has been a key point in his development with the Philadelphia 76ers. He has the skills to be a high-level scorer but sometimes gets in the habit of deferring to Joel Embiid and others on the floor.

With James Harden not on the floor right now, the Sixers need Maxey to be assertive on offense more than ever. Along with assuming point guard duties, he's also the No. 2 scoring option behind Embiid.

In the season opener against the Milwaukee Bucks, Maxey proved why he's among the top breakout candidates in the NBA this year. He did it all for the Sixers in their crushing one-point loss. Maxey played 40 minutes Thursday night and finished with a stat line of 31 points, four rebounds, eight assists, and two steals. Most impressively, he didn't commit a single turnover.

After his strong performance, Maxey shouted out two of his teammates for helping him stay in the right frame of mind. The first was Patrick Beverley, who got in the young guard's ear when he got into foul trouble early.

"Shout out to Pat Bev, we played together and he was on me like 'don't you stop being aggressive it doesn't matter the situation is you keep being aggressive. You've done it all camp, you've done it all preseason,'" Maxey said. "Once I started being more aggressive, it started opening up Joel [Embiid] a little bit."

Along with head coach Nick Nurse, Joel Embiid also pulled Maxey aside late in the first half to keep his mindset on being aggressive. Embiid has constantly urged the young guard to attack consistently on offense because when he does, it opens the floor for him as well.

"[Nick Nurse] told me I got to be aggressive. It was some time in the beginning of that game where I was deferring and Joel told me too," Maxey continued. "If you come off and you being aggressive, that's going to get me open."

Overall, Maxey put together a stellar performance to kick off the year. No matter what the circumstances are moving forward, Maxey maintaining his aggressiveness is something the Sixers will continue to preach moving forward.