Maxey on the Mic LIVE with Nick Nurse

John rees MAXI, he's on fire. Thank God for coming out.

We appreciate y'all. Welcome to Maxie on the Mic. This is my first time doing this live. This is this is really cool. I'm kind of nervous, nervous. Oh my god, let's see my new cuts already helping me out. This is the best anyway. I'm seriously but welcome to Max on the Mic. You know, this is our heart radio. They've been great. You can listen to this podcast on all types of form wherever you want to listen to podcasts.

But I just want to welcome coach Nurse. You know, he's a great coach man. Give it up. Thanks everybody.

I'm I'm glad that he's on our side now instead of him, you know, been on the other side to come up with these crazy schemes and I just have to run around and guard the offense to break the ice a little bit. I want to ask a question, So you wear glasses in the game. But when you're off the court, I've never seen you. You always have like a contact sit Why is that? He's like you get in costumers something.

I don't wear contacts. Oh, this is a story to this. Those glasses are just for fashion. No, I'm just.

Kidding, kidding, just kidding, you get into forms, I'm just kidding. So my first year in the NBA was about ten eleven years ago. I was an assistant coach and in my very first practice, I wear glasses for about twenty years. My very first practice out there garden playing boom, My glasses break and go all over the place. So I said, okay, no more of this. So I went got Lasik. Okay,

I said, I was there.

She was, I didn't see its sitting on the best So I didn't have my glasses off because I had las And she said, you put those glasses back on so I can see you on TV.

Oh, so I went and got a pair of glasses.

Yeah, and that's why I were Okay, Wow, I was.

I was so curious, like like when you you know, we talked and I saw you, you know, in your fresh conference, like doesn't have his glass though, but every time you got like they use coaching, They're like, yeah, glasses back on. I wanted to know the difference. But wow, that's cool. But no, I just want to say one, I appreciate you coming out and I appreciate you being on the podcast. You're a very very very decorated coach.

Man. I just like.

A two time g League, two times overseas time the British.

League, right one time NBA.

Trying to make that two times, you know, or multiple stay stay hot, I get another one.

I agree, I agree, I will.

And one thing I want to talk about though, seriously today is like, you know, your mind, Like everybody said, you think so differently than everybody else.

So what do you think?

What is one thing that you can say before I get into the Philly question and before we start I get into some fun stuff, I want you to just talk about your mind and how do you come up with some of these things?

Well, it just comes from one basic statement of sometimes I think there has to be a better way, right right right, Like sometimes I look at a situation on the court, and for thirty years or forty years, all the coaches I ever studied said it has to be done this way, and it doesn't make quite that much sense to me or the team I'm coaching, and I say, let's let's dream up something new and we just try it. It's like, it's like experimenting if it. If it works,

Right.

It's just it's just experimenting and trying to do it a different way.

That's it.

It's funny being on the opposite side of that and having to go through a seven game series of it.

Like I remember one time, you.

Know, Joelle, it's funny because you know, he talks about you all the time, like we play against you, and my first time playing against y'all, he goes up to me because like that's what me and Joe pretty cool.

He says he's gonna he's gonna track me when I past.

Half court, and I was like, what do you mean by that? And then like the scheme that you used, I mean it worked, and that he was It was funny. Because will you know, it's cool to have him, you know, on our side down because I know he's.

Happy, because he's like, I can't stand playing against the rapping.

A lot of that with Joel is just out of sheer necessity, right, we got we gotta have everybody that can stop him one on one, so we gotta we gotta dream up this, and then he beats that, we throw another one and throw another one, and just keep trying to figure out a way.

To stop him.

So but he said, man, this is not just warb on the top of Joe. I mean, he's a he's a funny guy.

I know, you got time to sit down. So he's a funny guy. You know.

Everybody sees him like quiet and you know, like you know, he just out there play, just plays.

But he talks. He talks, man, Yeah, he actually talks a lot like me.

Well, him and I had a lot of conversations from the sideline to the court. He talked about I didn't really really remember him, you know that it was that big a deal.

But I was in Philly. I I like, I just got the job.

But they were showing them all all at once, the highlights of them all.

I was like, man, I'm glad.

I'm on his side. We're glad that we're glad to have you. Man.

I think that's from the entire organization, all the way down to the players. But I think everybody's excited. It's gonna be fun. I want to jump into some Philly, some Philly stuff. So you know, there we go. Philly.

Is it is amazing? Huh, It's pretty cool.

Man.

It's coming from Dallas. It's just different. Man.

It's different one because the weather, the weather. But you was in Toronto, so you're gonna be use for the weather. I wasn't use to the weather.

I was. I was that wearing jackets and wearing clothes and all that. That was too much for me.

Like, man, I just want to put some shorts on. But I want to talk about the people. The people in Philadelphia. I think the people they're just they're different people. They're amazing, you know, they support the team. I fel like they're yes, give it up to the Philly fans here. Yes,

You know what I'm saying.

My mom, my dad, they had to work for everything they got. I had to work. I wasn't like I'm not six ' eight, I'm like sixty two, sixty three maybe, And I had to grind to get to who I am.

And like Philly fans.

I tell people all the time, they're so passionate when they come out to the game, and that's because they work for their tickets, you know what I'm saying. They work extremely hard and they root for us to win games because you know, that's that's what they pay to see.

So how do you think it can relate to that?

I love it. First of all, grew up probably similar to you.

I got eight brothers and sisters and and we kind of all living in a small house together. My dad's delivering mail and painting houses on the weekend to try to feed nine kids, and we're all out working in the I grew up in Iowas while working in the in the fields and all that stuff in the summertime.

So strong work ethic is like.

Really what I believe in and the environment I.

Grew up in. So that's awesome. I feel you on the passion.

I mean, I've been there getting booed in Philly plenty of times, so I'm ready for that. If that ever happens in reverse, I'll try to not make it happen.

Yeah, sure, but I could.

I can tell you, like the difference, Uh, when I was like in Toronto interviewing for the job, or I just taken the job, and uh, the Raptors fans will be in the airport and they they maybe passed by once and then they turn around, come back.

I coach, you know, I coach you know that.

And I get to Philly and Land and they'd be like, straight up, coach, are you gonna do this and that?

And they're coaching me right off the bat? So what to do?

It was?

It was?

It was good.

But I love it, man.

I mean I'd rather have them caring about the team than a lot of other things.

And like I said, I'm ready to get in their in battle.

They for sure care and I think that's what they care. They're going to show up and they're going to strike every single night, it doesn't matter who we're playing, no matter what's or play. And that's one thing I can really appreciate them for because no matter what's going on,

Yeah, I always I always say like if people say, oh, what do you know?

What do you want? What do you want to happen? Or what do you want your team to be?

Like I think about this a lot, Like when those fans are walking up the stairs at the end of the game, they ought to be saying, man, those guys play their backsides off, you know, like if they say that no matter really what happened, and then I think that our coaching staff has done this job, so you're ready for it.

The times that I play I've only been in the lead for three years, but every time we play against the Raptors, we always know, oh, they're gonna play hard. It's whether that's offensive rebounded, whether that's scrambling on defense, whether that's the communication, and how y'all play offensively with the with the pace and the speed they're going to attack you.

So how how do you think you.

Can bring that same type of philosophy into you know, this this organization and this team.

I mean, it's what I believe. I think.

I think we like to be aggressive just in general. Like you know, we want to try to dictate. We want to try to get you back on your heels. You know, we want to come at you both sides of the ball. That's kind of just like a mentality, and that that takes, uh, you know, that's our vision. It takes a little planning. It obviously takes a tone in practice. You know, from day one we try to set that tone right and and and then we just

We're gonna you know, you're gonna have a ball pressure score the next door next.

Day, you know, yeah, you're gonna have You're gonna have a score how many times out of ten you did it well, or how many times out of eight, or whatever the case may be, and.

You'll start taking pride in that.

I was about to say, if it's a score, and that means that this is a competition at that point, and uh, that's that's that's a you know, people always ask me how like you motivate? How do I get stay motivated, or how I can motivate others. That's just a tool of motivation that you just use right there. I'm sorry to flip the script, but like the way you just motivated me. And I'm not even I'm not even playing yet, but we're not. I'm like, I want my score to be the highest, you know what I'm saying.

Course I would love to stay in Vegas.

I would love to stay.

That's the job. Let me play, gotta let me play.

But uh, but yeah, that's that's a skill, man, That's a real skill that I feel like is uh is lost art Man to be able to motivate people.

Well, people use the word accountability a lot, right, right, and say, oh, we're gonna hold you accountable, But that also has to have some meaning.

And that's what it means to us as a coaching staff.

Is like, here's what we're gonna here's what we're gonna infected you to do, and then we're gonna inspect what we expected and see what we're at right and learn learn from that.

So okay, let's I want to flip a little bit now. I'm thinking about it.

Because I want to talk about like the culture of Philly a little bit more. Okay, So did you have you Okay, I know you talked to the Philly fans. Have they gave you any recommendations for cheese steaks?

Yet? I have some in the back of my mind, So I'm gonna ask you first before you go.

Only one.

So I'm just staying at a hotel now, right because I'm still in transition to moving. And the first guy I met there right off the bat said, hey, yep, in these Angelo's Angelo's Yeah, Okay, that's.

That's the only one.

And I've had what you think it was very good, very goovery good.

Yeah, but what are you gonna what are you gonna get me? Okay?

So been with me here all right. So when I when I touched down in Philly.

It was during like COVID and everything.

Right, so you know, they tell you, all right, the Pats and Gino is a tourists or whatever. So I went to you know, I to Rich my agent. He was saying, like, all right, go to uh Iscabibbles and Incabibles is on South Street. So like when I first got to Philly, I do it sometimes still. When I first got there, I would walk the walk the street of South Street like it's a big street where they have shopping and they have food, and like people would always come up to me and I'll take pictures of stuff.

It was a big deal.

And I would stop always when I go over to the shop, I would stop at Iscuabibbles and get a cheese steak.

So I think you should try that one. That one's really good.

And then I just had one and it's by Temple and it's called Maxis. Anybody from Philly out here, I don't know Phi, y'all know what Maxis is.

If you don't know.

So, yeah, it's a spot. It's it's really cool actually, and I'm over there. I went out, I went over there after the season. This is funny, and there's just another testimony to the Philly fans.

They I go over.

There and they just tell me about how what we should have did and what we should have did it in the playoffs and it was amazing and I got to I got to talk to them and laugh at them. But I think there's two spots to check out for sure. For straight did you have you did the you did the Rocky Step check?

Uh?

Yeah, you ran up the Rocky steps my first day of work, you ran them up?

Yeah, I ran them by the first day of work.

We could have got a video to that. Yeah, I wish I said that.

I've done it many times though. I used to do it when we played Your Guys a lot by yourself.

You just get up and run times by myself, sometimes with somebody else.

Yeah.

Big big fan of the movies obviously. It just like my era. I hate I hate to tell you make you feel man was growing up with that stuff.

It's funny because my dad, so he sat me.

Down at a younger age, so to watch those rocky movies and my mom, I don't want to watch this time.

My dad's name, I don't want to watch this. This is old. He's not gonna want to watch this. But I watched them before.

I had a pee wee football game, like I was in the fifth grade, so he had me watched the first one and this is the game bring up the Philly culture. It just inspired me and inspired me to be like the best version of myself, like I always felt like because I was really really small, I was still small. I was really really small growing up. I'm the smallest kid on the team all the time. And it just gave me that underdog feeling. And I feel

I'm trying to imagine you playing football and you ever get tackled.

No, we could catch you.

That was the thing.

Listen.

We can't catch you on the basketball court. I know that, but it's just like we got everybody chasing you. But I can only imagine you just running around everybody. I bet you were. My mom made me still but yeah, I just to good question. I mean, listen, I love basketball. I played at a mid major college, University of Northern Iowa.

I got a degree in accounting.

I thought I was going to be an accountant and my basketball careend, and I was like, oh my god, I can't. I can't leave basketball. So I started coaching and just took any little job I could get and just kept plugging away at It took me about twenty some years to get in the NBA. Right coach, small college coach, British Basketball League, coach in the D League, now the G League, and non assistant none here.

So I just kept plugging away. Right, You're like you're doing trying to for sure, trying to. You know, it's funny. It's like the way you said it and the way you've been talking and just not just this podcast today, but in general. You know, every time I've heard you speak as like as I played closer attention because you.

Know we're as one one unit.

Now. You always talk about like progressively getting better. You know that the days come along and as the season come along. And one thing I really thought about is like how you say you try new things and like you test about like that's crazy. I've never like had like a coach like actually, like you know what I'm saying, like testing out in the games. And I've seen you test it out against us in the game like a

I've seen it.

And the way that you adjust, the way that you you come to those conclusions.

I'm pretty sure you have a.

Lot of late nights. You get a lot of I get a lot of those ideas at night. Yeah, you're right, but it's crazy. You're gonna I'll give you a little like the night before training camp starts.

So I'm gonna have you guys all together, obviously everybody in the organization, we're gonna be together. I'm gonna ask you to have an open mind that that we're gonna we're gonna do something. You're gonna look up there and go, man, is that gonna work.

I don't think that's gonna work.

That sounds, but I'm just gonna ask you, like, let's try it, you know, and and and uh, like I said, if it doesn't work, we're not We're not gonna be foolish and just keep doing something that doesn't work. We'll just move on and do something else and hopefully we can build up some cool stuff over the sun with that.

M hold on. So we talked about culture.

We talked about just us in general, where we come from, how we came from. We talked about Philly cheese state, and talk about food, talk about all that.

Let's talk about something of that.

Okay, some of us said, the people who want to here, Okay, what do you feel like? You know, you had Kawhi right, and the way that you used it was was you know, it worked, you know what I'm saying. The way it worked you had guys coming around and like the guy in the ball mood, all those different things. How do you feel?

What do you feel like? A since that we could play with you know, differently with Joe or whatever we have on our team and it's gonna be good anyway.

Yeah, I would say that from playing against you guys, you know, lots of tough games, a couple of playoff series, et cetera, that that I hope to play a little bit more unpredictable offensively. That's the first thing where it's just kind of like, you know, we don't know, like Joe, it's going to Joel the block for five straight minutes or just a little bit more reading on what's happening

Freddie same thing.

You know, he had a better matchup than Kyle maybe in a certain stretch.

Of the game.

So just trying to use everybody you know, and looking at what's best for the team in that situation. And we know everybody is capable build, you know, try to get everybody to level up their game a little bit so they can step into those big moments.

And then defensively, we're gonna do a lot, right right.

We've had one, two, three, four, four summer league games now already, and we put a whole new offense in today today, yep, only because it's something I think that we might use, right and I just want to get some reps at it and see what it looks like and study it.

So I hope, hope it will be okay tomorrow.

But we just put it because it's it's like like you said that, we're we're experimenting for what we're gonna do here this winter, right, right, this is this is one we're getting our young guys a lot of minutes, you know, Jaden and uh Lou and you know some of these guys Phillip who's going to be on the roster this year.

But we're also you.

Know, tactically or X and O wise, whatever you want to call it, trying to do it.

Okay, cool, So you know we're kind of starting to wrap it up on this podcast.

I always do this thing, right, and I'm.

Sorry most people have time to think about it, but real lies, So I'm putting.

You on the spot, that's what all right.

So there's two questions that I asked, right, I ask what were you thankful for in the past week? So I'll let you start off with that. What are you thankful for in the past week?

Well, first, I always start with my family.

I got three sons, amazing, right, amazing, I always I.

Have I know this isn't a big deal.

But I always have a five minute straight of gratitude every day. Start start my day with a little fifteen minute meditation, and I add five minutes of gratitude.

So I try to go through all those things.

And come on man like, yeah, family, with unbelievable job, right, people, I work with, friends.

You know, there's there's so much to be to be thankful for. I think you got to pay attention to that.

Very day, right right right now. That's a good one. That's a good one.

And then the next question is, so I have this thing where you know, Philly fans know about it, but I said it my dad.

Taught it to me. He taught us me when I was young.

And I told Philly fans after my rookie year, you know, I went through the exit interviews or whatever, and they were like, what do you you know, what's your goal

So what do you if anything, it could be anything.

In life in basketball and coaching, family, anything, spiritual. What do you want to get one percent better at for the upcoming week.

I just I think that I tell you I'm really working on is just is I'm always working on just being able to really focus in on stuff. So I'm really working on the like meditation, being present, mindfulness.

That kind of thing.

Like, like that's the hardest part about being a head coach is that there's like there's media, there's press conference, res this, there's there's a selfie here, there's a there, there, there's design and practice and meeting with the coaches and talking to the scouts and talking to Darryl.

And all of a sudden, the ball is going up. Yeah you're in Philly and they're they're yelling at you, you know. But to be able to like zero in on the you.

Know, inside the inside the court for those forty eight minutes, because I really take it like super serious that like I gotta be at my best every night too when the team's out there, Like I gotta be really good and all that stuff. So I'm really trying to work on just just always seeing if I'm present, mindful and and in a good state of mind.

Really, no, I appreciate that.

Hey coach, we appreciate you coming on rightly good at this.

Appreciate you I'm try. Hey God, I really appreciate you all coming out. This is great, This is fun. My first live Max to the Mike episode. This is really flair Man.

There is more author but like I said, our Heart Podcast, you can.

Go anywhere to find it. We appreciate y'all coming out.

Thank y'all again. Let's thank y'all. Thank you.

Thanks a lot.