Philadelphia 76ers: Paul Reed has saved the Joel Embiid-less minutes

Can 11 minutes define an NBA game?

It probably shouldn’t, especially when a team like the Philadelphia 76ers has a player like Joel Embiid, but when his on-court +/- per 100 possessions is a +7.5 and his on-off +/- per 100 possessions is +11.5 and his primary backup during the regular season, DeAndre Jordan, was a -7.4 and -10.7 respectively, things can get out of hand in a hurry.

Case and point, well, seven of the team’s 16 games where Jordan saw action. Despite a few promising efforts, most notably against the Charlotte Hornets and the Miami Heat, Jordan closed out the regular season with a total +/- of -39, which is less than ideal when Embiid only has a total +/- of +101 over a much larger sample size.

Fortunately, starters play far more minutes in the postseason than in the regular season, so that should make life a little easier for the Philadelphia 76ers, but if they play a team like the Toronto Raptors even with Joel Embiid on the court and lose the minutes when he’s on the bench, the prospects of securing the W shrink immensely. Though the sample size is relatively small, Paul Reed has changed that dynamic in the best possible way.

Paul Reed is keeping the Philadelphia 76ers positive when he’s on the court.

Paul Reed has played 22 minutes through the Philadelphia 76ers’ first two playoff games against the Toronto Raptors. He’s largely kept opposing players in front of him, played sound defense, and scored six points, picked up five boards, and two takeaways in limited action.

Oh yeah, and his Sixers are a +12 when he’s on the court, which is a pretty incredible development for a player who was trapped on the bench until early April for reasons that make sense to Doc Rivers and few others; that certainly makes a difference.

Facing off against a Toronto Raptors team without a center measuring in at 6-foot-11 or taller, Reed never once looked out of place facing off against Nick Nurse’s bigs and was able to provide great utility as a dynamic frontcourt performer capable of making plays both on and off the ball. He’s played the screen game well at both ends of the court, run back on defense at the end of plays, and impacted the offense in a positive way whether tasked with playing off of Tyrese Maxey, James Harden, or even Shake Milton despite only attempting three shots over 22 minutes of action.

Huh, it’s almost like the Sixers’ reserve center needs to be a plus defender and a solid athlete, instead of a veteran lob threat who takes plays off on defense; who saw that one coming?

Because of Reed’s ability to hold things down for a few minutes at a time, Joel Embiid hasn’t had to play more than 37 minutes in each of the team’s first two games, which is just 3.2 minutes more than what he averaged over the regular season. That minor reprieve from the 40-ish minutes Harden and Maxey have been averaging could prove valuable down the stretch, especially since Embiid is getting hit left and right both by the Raptors’ bevy of supersized wings and, on occasion, by own his teammates.

All-in-all, not too shabby.

Will Paul Reed remain in the Philadelphia 76ers’ lineup in Round 2 – should the team get there – if their foe plays a traditionally-sized center? No, probably not; Doc Rivers has said multiple times that he liked DeAndre Jordan against bigger teams, and he will probably go that route depending on the matchup. But for now, the Sixers have found a rotation that works for them, and against all odds, it’s worked in Games 1 and 2 and should remain similarly viable when the series moves to Canada.