76ers’ Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris react to Georges Niang’s big game for Cavs

The Philadelphia 76ers fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers despite holding their star backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland to 28 combined points. Georges Niang, who just left the Sixers for the Cavs this offseason, shot the lights out and helped the Cavs secure the win.

Niang scored a game-high 25 points on 10-14 shooting from the field and 5-8 on threes. He didn’t record a rebound or an assist in his 30 minutes. The only other stats he added to his final line was a block and a foul. All it took was pure buckets to make a former beloved role player in Philly the enemy for a night.

In the three other games Niang played against the 76ers this season (64 total minutes), he recorded 21 points total on 7-17 shooting along with 17 rebounds. The veteran sharpshooter spent two seasons there, becoming a staple of the bench. He’s looking to do the same in Cleveland.

“It sucks being on the other side of it,” Tyrese Maxey told reporters. “We know what he’s capable of doing, we know if he sees one or two go in, it’s gonna be hard to contain him from the three-point line. But you gotta run him off. We ran him off the three-point line a couple of times but he made some plays today.”

The 76ers’ defense prioritized the pick-and-roll that Garland and Mitchell ran with Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, leaving Niang open in the corner as his man cheated over to the paint. As Niang showed on his first bucket, he’s capable of attacking closeouts and scoring inside the arc.

The Sixers had a lot of space to cover when rotating back out to Niang. But because of his height and high release point, he still had plenty of space to fire away. The Cavs’ big men can all make passes on the roll, putting Philly’s defense in a major bind after bringing its centers up to the level of the on-ball screen.

It was an unusual scoring distribution for the Sixers, too. They were led by Kyle Lowry, who notched an efficient 23 points. Maxey recorded 16 points and 11 assists on 7-26 shooting and Tobias Harris chipped in 21 points on 8-17 shooting. But in the end, Philly allowed Niang to get up good shots and he made them pay.

“He made some timely shots for them, big shots for them — those type of threes that create momentum for their group that he’s able to make,” Harris told reporters. “And somebody who shoots it that well, we gotta be better at [defending]. A lot of that comes from we gotta maintain the basketball, as well.”

Harris said that “too many drive-bys” allowed the Cavs to get open three. The 76ers have gotten better defensively without Embiid but still have weaknesses to exploit. That’s when an inefficient night from Maxey can really sink them, as it did in this game against the Cavs.

“So, a couple of things that we can tweak and get better at and get ready for the next one,” Harris said. The next one for the Sixers is an Easter Sunday showdown against the Toronto Raptors.