Tyrese Maxey is known as a good offensive player, but he can also play solid defense. He admits that in college he stopped gambling on defense and try to make steals because of coach John Calipari who would take him out of the game for mistakes.
Since entering the NBA, Maxey was able to be aggressive on the defensive end because there is Joel Embiid on the team who helps on that end.
Via Sam DiGiovanni of ClutchPoints:
“When I was younger, like in high school, I would get a lot of steals,” Maxey explained. “But once I kind of got to college, I got scared to make a mistake and come out the game with Coach [John Calipari]. So I wasn’t reaching as much, I wasn’t gambling. But now I can be a little more aggressive now because, of course, we got the big fella behind us and you got help defense. It’s been pretty good.”
This season Maxey is averaging 19.9 points, 2.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 0.9 steal in 32.9 minutes per game.
