I'm Tari's Mexi and you're listening to the seventy six Ers Insider's podcast.
This podcast is part of the seventy six Ers podcast network, presented by Stern and Cohen Law.
Search seventy six Ers Insiders wherever you get your podcasts. Suffering an injury at work can cause physical pain, but also great uncertainty about your rights. You need to retain a worker's compensation law firm that is a winner like our sixers, a firm that gets some of the best settlements, but is also willing to go toe to toe with the insurance company. No settling on the cheap. This is Philly.
We have grit and fight in us. Call the workers Compensation Law Firm of Stern and Cohen or visit their site Sterncohenlaw dot com. The consultation is free. Stern and Cohen are the official partners of the seventy six Ers. They'll go ring the insurance company's bell. Nick stauskis MAXI fifty one against the Utah Jazz, and he got off to such a hot start. I know, first quarters haven't really been his thing, but that's because Joe Lmbid would
score so much in those first quarters. And he goes out after being named an All Star and scores the first ten points, eighteen in the first quarter, didn't miss a three in the first half, thirty two in the first half, fifty one in the game, a new career high. What did you see from Maxi and Utah?
Well, first of all, what I love to see for him was, you know, fresh off of finding out you're making your first All Star appearance, you have a national TV game on TNT, and what better way to legitimize the entire process than going out and getting the fifty one ball. So hats off to him for having that kind of performance on that night. But what really stood out to me was the variety of buckets that we
saw throughout that night. I mean, you know, started with a number of DP threes, We saw some pull up thirty footers, we saw the catch and shoot. He showed off a little bit of the mid range game. But what I love too was some of the acrobatic finishes at the rim. That's where it really stood out to me.
His combination of bead and body control makes it look so easy when he gets to the rim, when in reality, those those tough layup t shooting at the rim are low percentage shots for just about anyone else in this league. And you know, we've talked about it a number of times on this show throughout this season, but just really him having the whole package offensively, not really having any weaknesses. You know, we don't see too many guys that can shoot it from thirty feet out, handle the ball, also
finish through contact, finish a round contact. It's just been special to see his growth this year. And again I'm so happy for him to get the nod as an All Star and then go out and have that performance and solidify himself as one of the league's best.
Matt Murphy back with you, and now I'm joined by my co seventy six Er insider Lauren Rosen as we overlook the court talking ahead of Sixers Mavericks on this Monday night, and Luka Doncic is out there warming up, hitting over the head half shots. It's always a spectacle to watch players of his caliber warm up. There's kids literally jumping up and down. Much of our segment here, Lauren is going to be about the Sixers star tonight in the absence of Joel Embiid, and they're All Star
Tyrese Maxi embiid an All Star starter. But of course, if you haven't heard, he is undergoing a meniscus procedure this week for his left meniscus, so don chic down there. Maxi is a huge story coming into this game. He's a Dallas area native and he's playing against the Dallas.
Mavericks, Dallas Very own versus Dallas. Tyrese Maxey tonight first time All Star, second night in which he will be introduced as a first time All Star. It was awesome to hear Matt coord introduced Tyrese Maxi first time All Star ahead of Sixers nets the other night. Just such a cool few days for Tyree Maxey. Such well deserved honors and accolades that, of course not you and I have seen come for years now, but great to see him get some shine and get his flowers nationally.
He will be on this very program in a matter of minutes. A conversation between you, Lauren, and the man himself, Tyrese Maxie.
If you're just.
Joining us and getting caught up on all things Sixers. They picked up their thirtieth win of the season in Utah last Thursday behind fifty one from Maxi. They did suffer a set back to the Brooklyn Nets. They've been severely shorthanded during this stretch of the season. Not just em beat out. We're talking multiple starters, multiple rotation players, a handful in some cases, and that has not yet relented.
But this past Thursday Salt Lake City, everyone knew at night the All Star reserves, as voted on by the head coaches, would be announced. The hope was that Tyreese Maxi would be part of it. But before we get to the TV announcement, what was the morning like in Utah?
Well, of course you wake up that morning and whether or not the players were all aware, those of us with the organization knew that the reserves for the All Star team were going to be announced that night, and of course we had been on the East coast, it would have been really close to tip off as Tyrese Maxey heard the news, But instead it came at a five o'clock Mountain Time broadcast on TNT, and Tyrese explained that he would be watching in his room. And of course,
now I'm getting ahead of myself. You asked me how the morning was, but we all sort of knew that around five o'clock there was going to be a big announcement. We also knew that the team continued to be significantly shorthanded. It had been a really challenging road trip up until that point. They wanted to end it with a win. The team gathered, of course, in Utah at the arena in the morning, as they always do on a game day.
Coach Brian Gates, who always brings the energy down on the sideline, brought a little extra energy to warm up that morning.
I had said on a previous episode of six ers and sixty that maybe it was the episode where we interviewed Brian Gates. And you can listen back to past interviews on the seventy six Ers Insiders podcast feed. Just search seventy six Ers Insiders clicked the little plus button to get all the interviews in your podcast feed. However you listen to podcasts. I think I said that he screams a lot. I think he just has a loud voice, but it's a comma. He gets everybody's attention regularly.
He sure does, and he did just that at shoot around in Utah. The team needed an injection of energy, some positivity again, trying to end a long road trip, a season long five game road trip with a w and energy at shoot around was great. Matt energy all day was really.
Really good, I guaranteed because they had been zero for their first four on that trip, they had struggled.
They of course were significantly severely shorthanded across that entire trip, absent as many as four starters at times, and a couple more guys off the bench as well. That of course, continues to be the case tonight, ahead of Sixers Mavericks at the time of this recording. But the guys needed
some energy. They had it at shoot around, and of course this was all gearing towards trying to get that win, not as much geared necessarily towards Tyrese Maxie's first All Star bit, but that certainly gave the team a little bit more energy as the afternoon went along, and.
The shoot around wraps up around what eleven local time yep, So you have the rest of the day ahead of you, and everybody felt pretty good about Maxie's chances. It's the head coaches for the conference that vote the seven reserves in, but there are not an infinite amount of spots, so I mean this year Maxie's averaging twenties. His numbers were around what they are now, twenty six points and six ish,
a little more than six assists per game. His three point number is not at forty right now, but it's still a respectable thirty eight percent from three. But some of those spots have to be filled by front court players, and Jalen Brunson was a near starter, so there was an expectation that Maxi was lobbying for one of maybe three spots that could go to a guard, and he was.
And we'll get to the announcement here, but obviously everyone knows he made the team, but just the inside look at what it was like being around Tyres and the sixers for the announcement. But you spend the rest of the day and then the game had been pushed back into primetime and he sticks around.
It was a five o'clock show on TNT. They announced the Eastern reserves. Second, Tyrese wasn't in the first five that they announced. Now we know that Bus two, which is the bus that both Tyres and I take to the game. There are a lot of staff and a lot of players that take bus too. That was a five to thirty bus. So we're saying, okay, this is a thirty minute pregame show. If they saved Tyre's for the last one, we're all gonna be late for the bus if we want to watch this.
Announce five thirty local time, so seven thirties, so.
Correct, seven thirty Eastern time. So we're trying to get this bus. Everybody's downstairs waiting for Tyrese to come down once the announcement hits, and he comes downstairs with you know, Tyrese is known for big smiles, but this was a big smile, even for tyres He tried to play cool, for sure, and he did a good job. But you saw in the videos that the Sixers put out shout out the Sixers social media team and video team that he was really happy and his teammates were really happy
for him. Taking the bus was such a treat. Seeing the guys get on one by one and congratulate Tyrese. A little inside piece of what happened there. Paul Reid had not seen that.
I was just gonna say that was my favorite part them and you probably you may have seen these on at six Ers. They our team did a great job of covering and not speaking for myself, but my teammates here and them all getting Paul's attention saying have you checked your phone? And the answer was no.
Paul had no idea what was going on, and so Tobias Harris shows Paul read the news. Tobias and d
Anthony Melton show, Paul read the news. He gets really excited for his draft classmate Tyrese and all of them back there had a little chuckle of of Paul's sort of lack of understanding of what was going on in that moment, but he was so happy for his buddy, and then of course great to see the night that followed Matt a career night for Tyree Maaxy fifty one points and they needed all of them in a big Sixers.
Win on the road.
Just a great day. Jayden Springer said, he woke up, he was named an All Star, he dropped fifty, we got the dub. That's a perfect day. I couldn't say it better myself.
You know, Tyrese Maxi all players say they want to win, but he would have been really upset if he had fifty one on his All Star night and they lost that game to Utah. So the fact that they got the win was the cherry on top. Matt Murphy and Lauren Rosen here with you talking all things Tyrese Maxi as he will be heading to his first NBA All
Star Weekend in mid February in Indianapolis. We are speaking live from the Wells Fargo Center prior to the Sixers Mavericks game featuring the first time All Star Tyrese Maxi. But a little bit of a reflection about Maxi's career other than the fifty one point game, some other notable performances in.
His career, and now of course some notable Tyrese Maxie performances ahead of our tyres Maxie interviewed, Do you want to go first?
Big games have been frequent in Tyrese Maxi's career. It's not just the fifty one in Utah, which Tobias Harris was also a big part of that shorthanded win, but he treated the home crowd to a fifty point game this year as well. November twelfth, that Pacers game, he had fifty, went seven of eleven for three in that game, capped it off with a three pointer. I highlight that game because of Embiid and this and his teammates Maxi's teammates trying to get him that fifty ball, just not forcing.
I mean, you think Embiid in the seventy and how he didn't want people to force the ball to him, but when they were trying to get Maxi fifty and he did in front of the home crowd. I select that one recency bias, but also because of his the shift in what we've seen up close in Tyrese's approach
this year. It was the Minnesota game where I noticed him of doing the mb'd running down the sideline, pumping the crowd up, heading to a time out, which is what he has developed kind of his style in year four. So recncy bias, I wanted to bring that one back to the forefront. And you're going to dig even further in the archives because there are a handful of options when it comes to the biggest Maxi games of his career.
Well, for me, it's sort of a when did you know that Tyre's Maxie could be an All Star? And for me, Matt, it was January ninth, twenty twenty one. Tyres was only weeks into his NBA career. That, of course, a season that started later due to the pandemic a draft that was later in the year twenty twenty, but January ninth, twenty twenty one, in this building, the Wells Fargo Center versus the Denver Nuggets. The starters Matt were as follows, Danny Green, Dwight Howard, Isaiah Joe, Dakota Massias
and Tyrese Maxe and Tyre's tells the story. We've heard it before, but Joelle came into the game that night, saw Tyres and said, Tyre's, we're going to need you to drop forty and Terry said, I don't really know what he was taught about, but this, of course, at that time was one of the greatest players in the league,
assumed to be MVP and an MVP candidate. Tyree's just a rookie who had known the guy for a couple of weeks, and he said, okay, I guess I'll try, and then of course goes into the locker room, learns that there would only be eight players dressing really seven available for that game, and Tyrese Maxi, as a rookie, proceeds to drop thirty nine on Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets made it competitive that of course, ended up being a one to fifteen one oh three loss for
the seventy six ers. But what everybody remembers is Tyrese Maxie running around in that Black City edition uniform, his sort of welcome to the NBA coming out party where he really took national attention for the first time, finished with thirty nine points, seven rebound, six assists, and two steals. He shot eighteen for thirty three from the field that night, and I Matt Murphy will never forget it.
He's capable of these types of big scoring performances any night, and that's something coaches around the league have come into this building and said before games, and he's going to be We said this earlier, underlined three four times on every white board when a team gets set to play the sixers, and now he's joining us, joining you here on six ers in sixthy Everybody should stick around for this because he's just in his element all the time. You don't always hear him like this the one on
one scenario. It's not a press conference, it's an exclusive interview for us and.
For context, this was recorded hasn't been heard yet, but was recorded the night before Tyrese earned his first All Star nod. We were in Utah in the hotel. Tyrese was relaxed. Anthony Melton was in the room taking it in and it was a pleasure to catch up with him on the eve of such a historic night.
So, without further ado, here is Lauren Rose and herself with All Star Tyrese Maxi.
Tyres what would fifth grade Tyrese think about you becoming an All Star for the first time?
Honestly, he'll be like, I don't know, He'll be proud. He would I wouldn't say he would expect it. I just say that like he'll expect the progress. I mean, me getting better every single day, every single year. That's something that we kind of I kind of found it out at a younger age.
So who were your favorite players growing up?
D Wade, Alan Iverson, Tracy McGrady.
What do all three of them have in common? They were really good because pretty soon I could say that d Wade, Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, and Tyrese Maxie are all All Stars hope. So yeah, how does that feel?
I mean I would say surreal, But like now, I just I don't know. I just think I worked extremely
hard to get where I am. A lot of people didn't believe and some of the things that I said when I was younger around at the time of that film that you just showed a year after that, it was some sixth grade film on there too, But I remember being in the sixth grade and telling people, Look, I'm gonna go to Kentucky gets coach Calby McDonald's all American, I'm gonna go to the league and I'm willa, you know, go from there and all these good things are gonna
happen and up we tell people that when you're a sixth grader, they don't really believe you. But in the back of my mind, I really believe that it came true.
NBA jersey sales came out, I think yesterday at the time of this filming, ninth is Tyres Maxie among all NBA players jersey sales this season. How does that one feel?
Now that if I told myself that in fifth guarde, I don't know if I would believe that one. I'm not gonna lie. That's just blessed. And I appreciate all the fans. I appreciate everybody who decides to wear or buy max of jerseys. I feel like we're doing something really special here in Philadelphia right now and trying to be you know, keep growing the organizations, keep growing the franchise, and also bring in w's and we've been doing that so so as we get back help to it, keep
doing that as well. So it being great.
We talk about your rookie year a lot, and there were no fans in the building, but your sophomore year there were a few. And that was the first time that you saw a kid wearing a Tyrese Maxie jersey.
Do you remember what.
It was like the first couple of times you saw someone wearing your jersey?
I really don't, honestly can't. I can't really like recall exactly the moment. But just seeing my name on an NBA jersey and it's not actually on my body was like kind of surreal, Like it's actually like it was in this store, you know what I mean, Like that's that's crazy to me, Like people can actually purchase a jersey of mine and like it's not me wearing it, so it's kind of cool. I just kind of embraced it.
I really do. I appreciate every time I go to games or I see people with MAXI jersey or I try to sign them if I can. Just try to show love as much as possible.
In Philadelphia and around the world this Christmas, a lot of kids asked for Tyrese Maxie jerseys, opened them on Christmas Day and were thrilled with what they had. How does that look in your head when you think about those kids and getting that gift.
I just go back to when I was a little kid and wanting the Way Way jersey. I remember he had a nickname Jerseys for Christmas, I wasn't able to get those. My mom was able to give me a red the Wayne Wade jersey I used to wear all the time, and I was extremely ecstatic about it. So I hope they felt the same way about opening a Tarre's max jersey, and I do appreciate them for the love.
At this point in the season, you guys have dealt with a lot of injuries. You've seen a lot of good things from your teammates and some tough losses on this road trip specifically, what's it been like to watch your team try to figure itself out and watch guys come off the bench and get more minutes and more opportunity. What has it been like from your vantage point over the last couple weeks.
I think it's been great for us. Honestly. I know sometimes the losses in the season, you know, you don't like to lose, You never like to lose. But it's great because at the end of the day, you just never know who's going to have to show up in the playoffs. My rookie year was me. I played in a Game six where I didn't play like the last two or three games, had to come out in Game six, I was the first one off the bench and perform for my teammates and have performance help us get a
chance out of Game seven. So you just never know who it is. Who's gonna be any given night in the playoffs, who's gonna give you that spark. I remember last year Game five at the House. Didn't play much in the first two in the first series, in the first half of the second series, he comes in Game five, give us a huge spark, plays well for the rest of the series. So you just never know who is going to be. And I think this is a perfect time to find out who can give you something special
in the playoffs. When that time.
Comes, when you don't play, You're always on the bench, which I think is really specially you're really engaged. Don't look at him like that. That's not fair to Anthony Melton is with us tonight. There are other things you can be doing besides being on the benure in the building, you're still supporting, but Terrese, you're always out there, and in timeouts you're also on the floor, like usually dribbling talking to a ref Like you can feel how badly
you want to be playing. What is the experience like in street clothes?
Yes, I mean I always want to be in uniform. I want to be in my costume. I want to be out there performing on the court, helping my teammates win games. But supporting them is great as well. Last year I didn't get there. I was actually injured to where I couldn't play, and I was out for a long time. So any night that I got to go out there and support them, I was out there trying to coach them up, trying to do anything possible to help us win games and help myself be impactful to
our team. And now you know, just the last couple of games that I've been out, I've been doing the same thing, just being out there supporting my teammates, trying to help them with different things, talk to guys and try to give suggestions out there to help us win.
Well, Listen, by the time this comes out, you will be back out there. People will be thrilled. So thank you for reflecting. And we're so excited about the next few weeks because I think they're going to be really big for you, hope. So