Tyrese Maxey is making a leap by playing the game on his terms

If you've already tuned the Sixers out, you're missing nightly brilliance from a young guard, the likes of which we haven't seen from him before.

After perhaps the low point of the season in Denver last week, the Sixers reeled off four consecutive victories - all in back-to-back situations. They took a healthy Nuggets team, the same team that curb-stomped them a week ago, to the final buzzer on Friday.

It's all been on the shoulders of Tyrese Maxey, who is playing quite easily the best basketball of his young career right now.

Over Philadelphia's last five games, Maxey is averaging 35 points per game - second in the entire NBA. He's sporting a true shooting percentage of 67 percent, almost 17 percent better than the league average this season. He's doing that while maintaining an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.50:1, right on the sweet spot for a guard. All of that, of course, while staging a season-long leap on the defensive end and logging almost 38 minutes per game.

The Sixers - Maxey, Nick Nurse and anyone else who speaks on a day-to-day basis - will give you the corporate lines. "He's being aggressive," some will say. "He's an amazing player," others will remark. Or, my personal favorite - "He's taking what the defense gives him".

No one wants to give away any parts of the secret recipe.

But as is always the case, the film will speak.

In summary, Maxey is dictating the terms of the game when the ball is in his hands. But, not like a hard metal guitar. That's more Ricky Council IV's style. Maxey is doing it like a saxophone. It's smooth. It's rich. It's soothing to the ears.

First and foremost, he's cutting down on some of his bad tendencies. The Sixers are creating more opportunities for him to square his body to the basket on outside jumpers, and it's paid dividends:

Whether it's off the catch or off the dribble, he's getting concentrated energy up through his body. His shoulders are squared. He's balanced. To his teammates' credits, especially Adem Bona, he's getting real space from good screens.

But, it's not as simple as 'out with off-balance off-the-dribble threes; in with the balanced, more catch-and-shoot types'. Maxey has long had a tendency to drive explicitly to his right and pull back for long jumpers explicitly to his left.

We're seeing less and less of that these days:

The value of him trusting his left for more than just step-back jumpers is a game-breaking development if it's more than just a brief flash. Before the last five games, defenses knew how to keep Maxey contained. He might put up big numbers, but they were on inefficient shooting. The last five games, he's been unpredictable. The decisions haven't been dictated by which hand the ball is in or whether he's attacking left or right. Defenses are guessing.

Changing tempos on a dime and refusing to pick up his dribble are qualities we've seen him flirt with in the past. But, Maxey has never consistently used those tools to his advantage. There are few things about his game that are maddening. That is one of them. He's long been known for his heavy foot on the gas, going 100 miles per hour at all times. While it's exciting to watch and surely an advantage at times, it also leads to loss of control at the rim. We've seen him bungle finishes at the rim because he rushes the shot to match his body's momentum. There are countless examples of Maxey going so fast that he smokes easy layups because they ping off the backboard too hard.

Lately, he's exhibiting better patience and consistently changing tempo to get defenses off balance:

He's shiftier now than ever before, making defenders think they can relax before flipping the switch and leaving them in the dust. By not picking up his dribble so easily, defenses have to stay sharp to try to contain the basketball. They can't be flat-footed when he's in the vicinity. They can't break proper defensive stances. There are fewer touches that end in no man's land, Maxey pivoting in circles in search of help from his teammates.

The game is coming easy to the Sixers star guard right now. It's the things that have clicked lately that have saved Philadelphia's season from finally spiraling out of control. 

The Allen Iverson comparisons used to just be based in speed and size. Now, they're based in Maxey playing the game on his own terms.

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