Maxey's 38 Rescues Philly After Charlotte's Dominant First Quarter

Tyrese Maxey dropped 38 points to drag Philadelphia back from a 13-point first-quarter deficit, and PHI escaped Charlotte 109-104. The story of the night was a team that looked dead in the water at 37-24 finding a pulse — and then a dagger.

Charlotte came out swinging and nearly made it stick. The Hornets went on a 23-9 run to close the first quarter, with Grayson Allen doing the heavy lifting — a 26-footer, a 29-footer, a turnaround in the paint — and Ryan Kalkbrenner finishing two dunks in the final four minutes to push the lead to 37-24. Brandon Miller was everywhere too, hitting back-to-back threes early and adding a driving layup to keep pace. Philadelphia's offense had essentially gone dark, scoring just six points over the final nine minutes of the quarter. It looked like Charlotte's night.

Philadelphia chipped away through the second quarter — Jabari Walker scored four straight points to open the period, Jaylen Brown added a turnaround, Dean Wade converted a driving layup — but Charlotte kept answering. Miller hit another three at 7:41, and the Hornets still led 44-40 with under six minutes left in the half. The deficit never ballooned back out, but Philly couldn't fully close it either. What the box score doesn't capture is how much Maxey was doing just to keep Philadelphia in shouting distance: he finished with 38 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals, and the early sequence — two pullup jumpers, a step-back three — was the only reason this wasn't a blowout before halftime.

The decisive moment came in the fourth quarter with 36.1 seconds left, when VJ Edgecombe buried a 26-foot step-back three that swung Charlotte's win probability from 33% to 15% — an 18-point swing that effectively ended the game. Anfernee Simons added 19 points and 3 steals off the bench, and Jaylen Brown chipped in 16 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists to give Maxey enough support to finish the job. For Charlotte, Allen's 27 points and Miller's 24 were genuinely impressive — this appears to be a Hornets team with real offensive weapons — but it wasn't enough. Naz Reid, who had reportedly been benched in the second half of a game earlier this week for not meeting the team's standard, contributed 14 points and 5 rebounds here. Six Charlotte players were listed as DNP by coach's decision, limiting the rotation, and that depth crunch looks like it may have mattered down the stretch. Philadelphia wins 109-104.