CAMDEN, N.J. -- A little wrinkle the Philadelphia 76ers have been able to lean on in the preseason has been moving star guard Tyrese Maxey off the ball and allowing him to get those reps in to unlock other facets of his game.
The 2-time All-Star has had to do a lot of offensive creation in recent seasons with as he would have to handle the ball, run offense, get teammates involved, and find ways to score himself. Now, with the presence of guys like LeBron James, Jaylen Brown, and others, Maxey can move off the ball, come off screens, get catch-and-shoot opportunities and that's music to coach Nick Nurse's ears.
"I think that he's kind of had to generate so much by himself," Nurse explained. "He's had to bring it up. There were lots of dribbles,
lots of ball screens and all that kind of stuff. He's had to find space, bounce around, find more space, all that kind of stuff, make a bunch of reads. So, he should get a good chunk of either guys creating for him a little bit more, or some off ball action that gets him freed up, too. It should help him just to have a little more energy to rebound more, play defense, things like that."
One of the better aspects of this off-ball experiment with Maxey is that he has experience playing off the ball before and it's almost natural to him. He played at Kentucky with other guards such as Immanuel Quickley and Ashton Hagans, so he knows how to play off the ball, and share ball-handling responsibilities with other guys who can shoot, handle, and make plays for others.
"To me, he looks great," Nurse finished. "Things are smooth, confident. He's getting stronger, all of those kind of things, so there's a lot to continue to like, just offensively, it's going to take us a bit to get into the swing of things. I think we work more on our offensive stuff in practice and shoot around than we do during these games. So, I think we'll continue to move him around."
Maxey and the Sixers will host the Boston Celtics in the preseason finale on Friday before they turn their attention to the regular season opener on Tuesday against the defending champion New York Knicks.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Nick Nurse assesses star guard Tyrese Maxey's off-ball reps for Sixers
