It's been an exciting week for Tyrese Maxey, who was just named to his first NBA All-Star team and recently scored a career-high 51 points against the Utah Jazz.
With Joel Embiid sidelined indefinitely, the star guard will be asked to take on an even more significant role in the offense. Now, Maxey gets a prime opportunity against the Dallas Mavericks to prove his newly minted All-Star status.
Maxey is averaging 35.1 points per game in 248 minutes without both Embiid (knee) and De'Anthony Melton (back) on the court, per CourtIQ — and there's even a possibility Tobias Harris (illness) can't suit up Monday. While Maxey's 27.4 points per game average has not necessarily translated in the 11 games without Embiid, five of those games were against teams ranked in the bottom 10 in pace, which won't be the case tonight.
The Mavericks' 25th-ranked defense has been a disaster to begin with, but missing center Dereck Lively II (nose) to neutralize shots in the paint has proven to be an even more significant blow, with Dallas' opponents taking the fifth-most attempts in the restricted area since his absence.
With Lively sidelined, I like Maxey to thrive in a slashing role against the Mavericks. Lately, the Kentucky product is attacking the rim at his highest rate, averaging 12.5 attempts (second most) in the last two games without Embiid, drastically up from his 7.7 attempts across the season.
And it's not like Dallas has prevented slashing guards from having success this season. The Mavericks rank 24th in transition points (18% of Maxey's total points) and have given up big performances to Damian Lillard (30 points), Paolo Banchero (36 points), De'Aaron Fox (34 points), Trae Young (30 points) and Devin Booker (46 points) all in the past two weeks.
With the game total set at 243.5, Maxey should have no trouble following suit, and I like his chances of going over his points prop tonight.
