ATLANTA — A few days prior, head coach Nick Nurse hadn’t concealed his displeasure with how the Sixers performed in losses to the Knicks and Jazz.
His tone was much different following the Sixers' 139-132 overtime defeat Wednesday to the Hawks.
“I told them, ‘What a battle.’ I think that’s all we’re really asking for, is you go out there and give everything you’ve got,” Nurse said. “I think they did that tonight. You’re going to put yourself in positions. And hopefully, if you do that, the ball will bounce your way a little bit. It did for a lot of the game, but it just didn’t when it mattered.”
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Thanks largely to Tyrese Maxey, the Sixers appeared on the verge of a thrilling win.
Maxey threw on his superstar’s cape during an astonishing stretch, scoring nine points on 3-for-3 shooting in under three minutes and transforming a five-point deficit into a four-point lead.
The 23-year-old slammed home two dunks, played excellent defense to force a missed Dejounte Murray jumper, and then canned a step-back three that had everyone on the Sixers grinning.
Maxey, who finished with 35 points and nine assists, explained postgame with a smile that the dunks weren’t entirely his own idea.
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“My teammates have really been on me, because they know I can dunk,” he said. “They’ve been like, ‘Can you just dunk, please?’ So today I said, ‘We just had two days off. I’m going to go dunk a couple.’ … I can’t miss layups that way.”
The last minute of regulation was less fantastic for Maxey. He missed a three on the Sixers’ penultimate possession and didn’t get a foul call on their last play. Trae Young got a dubious-looking whistle with 1:44 left in OT, drawing Maxey’s sixth foul, and the 23-13 Sixers ultimately headed home with a season-high three-game skid.
“I think that there’s certainly a bunch of learning situations there for him,” Nurse said. “It usually takes a few cracks of having the ball in your hands with a tie game, going down the stretch, to figure out what you’re going to do. … He possibly got fouled on that play. His sixth foul, I just watched it in the locker room. That was pretty hard to take for a guy that was really fun to watch tonight.”
The Sixers are now 2-7 this season in games without Joel Embiid, who sat out a second straight contest because of a left knee injury. Nurse said pregame that Embiid is progressing well and he’s “hoping” the six-time All-Star is available Friday night vs. the Kings.
While it’s a plus that the Sixers made their weekend effort level look like a blip, the bottom line is they left Atlanta with no wins since last Tuesday.
“Just to stick with it,” Tobias Harris said after a 32-point, 10-rebound outing. “Obviously it’s a long season. I think we’ve had games where we haven’t had our full group. So it’s easy to look at it like, ‘The world is falling, we lost three games.’ But at the end of the day, we know what we’re capable of.
“We thought that this game right here, we let it slip out of our hands. This game should’ve been a victory for us. But it’s not, so we just get ready, bounce back and figure out ways that we can get better. Take some things from this game to help us move forward. Keep our swag, keep our vibe high and be ready to win the next one. That’s how you look at it.”
Along with Harris, De’Anthony Melton returned from injury Wednesday. He was limited to 21 minutes following three games out with lumbar spine soreness, a number Nurse hoped would “bump up a little bit next game.”
Kelly Oubre Jr. slid to the bench and had an off night, scoring seven points on 3-for-11 shooting. Oubre described the move to a sixth-man role as “tough” and a “mental shift.”
“I’ve done it before,” Oubre said. “It’s not ideal, but I’m here to win and here to help this team win — so whatever I’ve got to do.”
He also mentioned that his foot was “kind of bothering” him, though he said he wasn’t worried about the issue.
Jaden Springer told NBC Sports Philadelphia he had “a little tweak” late in Wednesday’s third quarter, too. Springer, who stayed in the game but seemed to move gingerly for a couple of minutes, said he’d “definitely be good” moving forward.
The third-year guard played outstanding, dogged defense on Young in the first half, temporarily knocking Atlanta’s top star off his game.
On a highly eventful night, he’s among the reasons the Sixers’ self-assessment was far sunnier than at the start of the week.
“The last two games before this one, I don’t think we played hard,” Maxey said. “We didn’t play as hard as we could have, and we kind of just laid down and let two beatable teams just come into our house and take a game from us. Tonight, I feel like guys fought.”