In the wake of The Shot — Tyrese Maxey’s 35-foot, overtime-forcing three-point dagger in Game 5 of the Sixers-Knicks series — I found myself thinking back to a far quieter moment, six months ago.
That November night the Sixers were three games into their season, and Maxey had already turned heads by ringing up 91 points, including 26 in that third game, a rout of Portland. Even before the game Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, a Hall of Fame guard during his playing days, had called Maxey “the straw that stirs the drink” for Philadelphia.