3 biggest takeaways after Game 1 of Raptors-76ers series

2. Tyrese Maxey is a bigger threat than James Harden.

While much of the talk about Toronto’s defensive focus in this series centered around keeping Harden in check and limiting Embiid’s touches, it was Maxey who gave the Raptors the biggest headache. Maxey put up 38 points on 14-21 shooting, with 21 of those points coming in the third quarter.

While Harden’s lack of the same explosion he had in Houston has helped Toronto prevent him from breaking out as a scorer, Maxey has the perfect style of play to frustrate this defense. With the blinding speed needed to blow by bigger defenders and the interior finishing to succeed at the rim, Maxey showed how lethal he can be.

Tyrese Maxey will be a problem for the Toronto Raptors.

While Trent underperforming and All-Defensive performer Fred VanVleet getting in foul trouble early didn’t help, the Raptors had no answer for Maxey as a penetrator and shooter. While taking attention away from Harden sounds like a bad idea, he seems to be settling into becoming more of a playmaker than a ball-dominant scorer role of late.

If that trend continues, Maxey needs to be viewed as an elite scorer that can score 40 points when he is requested to. Winning this chess match is going to take some bold moves from Nurse, but he’s already proven to have issues with keeping the electric young guard in check.