Philadelphia 76ers: Paul Reed is right about the Miami Heat

The Miami Heat are a very good team; they have a ton of talent in their backcourt, on the wings, and even in their frontcourt, where they may be small but are incredibly formidable nonetheless.

Even with Joel Embiid, beating the Heat was always going to be a tough ask, as they earned the top seed in the East for a reason and have a coach/roster/culture trifecta that few other teams can confidently boast but without the big fella manning the five spot? Well, the Philadelphia 76ers‘ margin of error goes down considerably.

That margin for error, however, isn’t zero, and as Paul Reed pointed out in his post-game press availability, the Sixers very well can beat Miami, even if 19 people at ESPN all believe that not to be the case.

Will it be easy? No. Will the Philadelphia 76ers have to play their best basketball of the season? You bet, but with Game 2 set for Wednesday and Joel Embiid hopeful for a Game 3 return, this series is far from over.

The Philadelphia 76ers put some good things on tape in Game 1.

Really, it’s no wonder Paul Reed thinks the Miami Heat are beatable, for when he was on the court, the Philadelphia 76ers actually played Erik Spoelstra’s team almost even.

I know, crazy, right? How could a backup center who almost never saw the court during the regular season have kept the Sixers in Game 1 when Philly was outscored by 22 points over the 17 minutes former All-Star DeAndre Jordan was on the court?

Two reasons: 1. DeAndre Jordan is a bad basketball player, and no matter how much Doc Rivers doesn’t want to admit it, that fact is unflappable. And 2. Paul Reed is a nimble, athletic 6-foot-9 big man who can switch across multiple positions defensively, get back to the basket in a hurry, and rebound the ball with the tenacity of a 22-year-old attempting to make the most of his limited opportunity.

When Reed was on the court, the Sixers moved the ball well in transition, moved the ball in the halfcourt, and retained the sort of lob threat Jordan brings to the table with a far more well-rounded bag of tricks peppered in for good measure.

Oh yeah, and did I mention confidence? Because Reed has confidence for days.

See what I mean? You can’t be shy and have the nickname BBall.

With Reed deployed at the five spot, the Sixers can confidently play their 2-3 zone defense, which gave the Heat fits in Game 1. He’s also an asset in transition defense, as Reed has the speed of a forward and is long enough to contest shots Matisse Thybulle-style, even if a would-be scorer is a few feet in front of him. Really, the only thing Reed can’t comfortably do on the defensive end of the court is body a traditional center posting up with his back to the basket but considering the composition of the Heat’s roster, that isn’t really in their repetiteur anyway.

That, my friends, is the beauty of Reed as a steady rotation player and why he should have been playing double-digit minutes all season long: He unlocks a style of play that is fluid, fast, and as fun to watch as it is annoying to defend.

Of the eight two-man lineups that finished off Game 1 with a positive Net Rating – minimum six minutes- Reed was featured in two of them and produced positive production alongside both James Harden and Shake Milton. Jordan, by contrast, was exclusively featured in two-man lineups with negative Net Ratings and produced an absolutely brutal Net Ratings of -85.7 in the 15 minutes he was on the court with Tyrese Maxey.

If the Sixers are going to out physical the Heat, out aggressive the Heat, and make the Heat play their game, not the other way around, they have to attack Miami in a way they aren’t expecting, not by hoping that Jordan can give you a convincing Joel Embiid impression for a few minutes at a time.

When Doc Rivers tried out-of-the-box ideas versus the Miami Heat, it tended to work. The center-less seven minutes of James Harden, Danny Green, Tobias Harris, Georges Niang, and Tyrese Maxey produced a Net Rating of 49.2, and despite going 0-7 from beyond the arc, Niang still finished out the game with a plus-minus of +6 in 22 minutes. Goodness, even Charles Bassey looked good when the bench was cleared for the final four-ish minutes of regulation, even if that’s probably the only time he will actually see the court this series. If the Philadelphia 76ers can just take advantage of their optionality, they might be able to turn that 14-point loss in Game 1 into a four-point win in Game 2, just in time for Joel Embiid’s on-court return a few nights later.