One of Tyrese Maxey's Best Defensive Attributes May Actually Hurt the Sixers

Of all players to log at least 35 minutes per game and take the court for at least 50 games during the 2025-26 regular season, only one flirted with two steals per game.

That same guy ranked fifth amongst all NBA players who logged at least 2,000 minutes and played at least 50 games in total steals during the regular season, beating out respected defenders like aspiring evironmentalist Kawhi Leonard, Amen Thompson and Scottie Barnes. He trailed only reputed ballhawks in Cason Wallace, Dyson Daniels and Kris Dunn.

The player we're talking about is Tyrese Maxey.

Turn your back to him one pass away at your own risk. He might just sense an opportunity to leverage his speed, bolting away from his assignment in hopes of turning you over by disrupting your dribble from an angle at which you are completely vulnerable.

He might see the ballhandler dribble his way into trouble, losing control of the ball as the primary and the helper converge. In comes Maxey, abandoning his man to blow up the play and take the ball the other way.

It's the NBA's version of a pick-six.

It's exciting when it works, the speedster off to the races with a numbers advantage. If it's a home game, fans jump to their feet and cheer, pleading for an easy basket. If it's an away game, it silences the crowd, despiriting the audience as they hopelessly watch the Sixers score with ease.

It paints Maxey as a daring specialist. Someone who can sense an opportunity and strike, turning defense into offense in a flash. It builds up his steals column, supporting his case as an adept defender who is merely assumed to be a liability because of his 6-foot-2 frame.

If you ask me, building Maxey's defensive case on the daring blind-side steal is not a compliment. It ignores the work he's done to solidify his body so that he can hang with bigger guards. It doesn't capture his gifted legs, which give him the ability to rotate from one spot to another, often pinning would-be quality shots off the backboard. It fails to convey that he actually cares about defense. He's not James Harden. He's not Trae Young. Maxey, despite his unfavorable size, actually takes some pride on defense.

Those high-action sneak steals give him spotlight. They also hurt the Sixers.

It would be one thing if the skill was blowing up drives by sliding over as the ball approached, challenging the ballhandler to make kickout passes to the open man with his body turned away from the target. It would be one thing if it was getting a hand on the ball in a DHO and disrupting that action for a loose ball.

Those are all defensive decisions that allow for recovery.

In the case of Maxey's blind-side steals, it's a home run or it's an inning-ending double play. Every time. Those are the only two outcomes.

I won't bore you with every permutation of what happens when Maxey isn't able to come away with the steal, but his man is left unaccounted for with Maxey in no position to get back into the picture if the offense makes the pass to him.

What happens from there?

Maybe it's an open corner three. The Sixers gave up copious corner threes last season precisely because of Maxey's hunt for steals. Maybe someone rotates to help, but they can't shut off the driving angle in time. Somewhere down the line, as the Sixers' defense is in blender mode because of Maxey's dare, someone is getting a dunk or an open three.

And so there's this paradox.

A Maxey blind steal unleashes transition offense. Not only will the Sixers have numbers against an unbalanced floor, but the other guys following Maxey are, uh, LeBron James, Jaylen Brown and V.J. Edgecombe.

I'd put the expected value of those transition possessions at about 2.0. Pretty good when it works.

But if that way of unleashing a lethal transition offense also endangers James and Joel Embiid.

Game it out in your head.

When Maxey is on the court with James, he probably won't be assigned to the worst offensive player on the opposition. James will have his moments of high-leverage guarding, but the guy in his 40s is probably going to draw that assignment. So when Maxey shoots for the moon and misses, it puts James in position to have to move his feet and rotate within the defense to plug the hole created by Maxey's decision.

How about Embiid?

With uninspiring rebounding prowess as a team and lackluster rim protection, Embiid is probably going to be guarding the hoop when he's on the floor with Maxey. If the pick-six doesn't work, is he then rotating out as part of the domino effect to help Maxey? If he's rotating out, who's stopping the offensive player plunging to the rim?

If Embiid is stepping into space to cut off any movements in the middle of the floor, who has his back?

If Maxey's attempt at a steal creates a two-on-one on the back side of the floor, Embiid has to make one play between two offensive players. Does he have the second jump left to recover if his first guess is wrong? Does he have the consistent agility in his knees to step from spot to spot to thwart easy shots as the rock pinballs around the floor?

The saving grace is that not every Maxey lineup will feature Embiid and James. There will be times when he's surrounded by capable lateral movers in Edgecombe, Brown, Dean Wade and Adem Bona or Dominick Barlow.

But Maxey's trademark defensive decision is suddenly a contradiction. A catalyst of lethal offense and simultaneously a potential rusty link in Philadelphia's defensive chain.

It won't hurt the Sixers every time. But when the breakdown yields points, Maxey will be the reason why.

It's a decision he'll have to wrestle with all season long.

Sign up for our free newsletter and follow us on X and Bluesky for the latest news.

Add us as a preferred source on Google