Getty P.J. Tucker of the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Philadelphia 76ers are one of four teams to have an unblemished playoff record through the first round. Joining the Sacramento Kings, Denver Nuggets, and Boston Celtics, the Sixers are halfway toward a second-round appearance.
That’s been due in no small part to PJ Tucker‘s contributions on the glass. The playoff toughness fans were told to wait for all season has been borne out against the Nets. The veteran gobbled up seven boards in Game One and eight in Game Two, overpowering an undersized Nets squad.
Tucker’s made a career doing this very thing, something Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn acknowledged recently.
“I’ve enjoyed watching him his entire career,” said Vaughn, per Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire. “We had a series with him when he was with Milwaukee. You give guys like that credit where you see he feels like the ultimate teammate. He shows up, he does his work, he does his job every single night.”
“Some things that don’t go on the stat sheet, those 50/50 balls, the physicality that he played with,” Vaughn continued. “So we’ll have to match that, but you give him credit for doing his job every single night.”
Tucker wasn’t the only Sixer to earn praise from Brooklyn.
Cam Johnson Praises Tyrese Maxey After Sixers Beat Nets
The star of Tuesday’s matchup was Tyrese Maxey. Without his herculean 33 points, including six triples, the Sixers likely wouldn’t have found a way to overcome a poor shooting night from the rest of the team and win 96-84.
“That’s playoff basketball, man,” Nets forward Cam Johnson said of the Maxey-led Sixers comeback. “It’s a good team. Good guys are locked in, playing at the highest level, highest focus so you gotta expect to a degree that somebody’s going to step up their game,” Johnson said.
“And it’s not like [Tyrese Maxey]’s not a usual suspect. That guy can score the ball.”
Maxey’s taken a huge step forward as a shooter this season. He’s always shot the ball at an impressive clip (43% over his last two seasons), but continued to snipe the ball well on a boom in volume this year. He went from attempting 4.1 threes per game last year to 6.2 this season, elevating him to elite territory as a shooter.
His youth has provided an idea of what Philadelphia’s future could look like, a crucial factor given James Harden‘s free agency decision this summer.
James Harden’s Sixers Future ‘Very Unclear’: Woj
On Christmas Day, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Harden was eyeing a potential reunion in the Lone Star State with the Houston Rockets in free agency this summer.
And since then, the Houston-Harden rumors have only grown. On Thursday, Woj doubled-down on his earlier reporting, noting that Harden’s feelings haven’t changed since December.
“James Harden’s future is very unclear in Philadelphia,” Adrian Wojnarowski said on his podcast. “Houston is very much in play for him. And I think a lot may depend on [whether] they make a run and win and it’s easy to pay him long-term big money, or he just wants to be in Houston. Win or lose he goes, or it’s dependent on the team’s success.”
Harden is likely to opt out of his team-friendly deal this summer and seek to earn what is likely the last mega-contract of his illustrious career. The Rockets, with their upwards of $60 million in cap space, could very easily offer Harden enough money to bring him back to Space City.