With the regular season winding down and the Philadelphia 76ers biding their time, let’s look at how the playoff rotation will shake out.
Whether you like it or not, the Philadelphia 76ers barely care about these last few games. As they sit 49-27, 4.5 games ahead of the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers while 4.5 games behind the Toronto Raptors, they’re all but a lock for the 3-seed in the Eastern Conference.
Joel Embiid getting some key rest down the stretch is a good indicator, even though he probably needs it regardless. If the Sixers were in a dogfight for a certain seed, Embiid probably only sits one or two games.
Thankfully, the other key players will probably get rest too. The team has been working with a strict nine-man rotation for a few months now, which can take its toll.
These are also signs that head coach Brett Brown has likely made his decisions about the playoff rotation. The bench improved at the trade deadline, but not by much. This rotation will be tight.
The starting five is obvious, and at least four of them will get an uptick in minutes when Game 1 rolls around. J.J. Redick is the only one who may not, because his defensive flaws are bound to get attacked by a good team.
Assuming the worst, Redick probably hovers around 32 minutes per game. Two ramifications will come from this: James Ennis will get the other 16 wing minutes, and Tobias Harris will be staggered in those minutes as well to maximize spacing at all times.
Harris already gets 36.0 minutes per game as a starter, so it’s easy to see him getting up to 38 in the playoffs. Ennis, along with the minutes he gets without Redick, will probably get a few more simply because he can survive on switches.
Guess who can’t survive on switches? That’s right folks, it’s fan favorite T.J. McConnell. It’s difficult to envision McConnell getting minutes at all, unless a matchup comes along that he can survive in. And that in itself is a tall order.
Zhaire Smith has the body to match up well, but he almost died a few months ago, so it would be a shock to see him in a playoff setting. It’s awesome that he’s back in basketball shape, but even Brown has shot down the idea of him getting much tick.
Where will the backup playmaker minutes go, if not to McConnell? Shake Milton can do it in spurts, but he is another youngster Brown doesn’t trust. The second-leading scorer from the G League regular season will also be relegated to an emergency role.
That leaves most of those minutes to Jimmy Butler. Ben Simmons will likely spend some time off the ball too, because his one crucial flaw will be tested, accentuating the need for Point Butler even more. Harris is a good pick-play generator too, so the ball-handling wealth can be distributed. That’s exactly what Butler and Harris are here for, after all: attacking mismatches, and accounting for Simmons’s weakness as the lead distributor.
Hopefully Butler is serious about saving himself for the playoffs, because the Butler that only shows up for crunch time is not good enough. Not to mention, he won’t get the max contract he wants if he only plays for one quarter; going Super Saiyan for nine minutes doesn’t excuse the first 27.
Embiid probably ticks up to about 36 minutes a game, and hopefully he’s fully rested and ready to terrorize the East. He’s the team’s best player, and will be put through the ringer against several difficult switches. Offensively and defensively, he will be on trial for every minute he is on the court.
The most variable part of the rotation comes when Embiid sits. The Sixers can go small with Simmons and Mike Scott as the main frontcourt players, or they can try to trust Jonah Bolden. I would test the latter, because Bolden’s skill-set is exactly what the team needs, but Brown likely doesn’t trust him; he has a propensity to foul far too much (6.1 fouls per 36 minutes).
Boban Marjanovic is beloved by all, but like McConnell, he is only useful for certain matchups. Any big with an iota of athleticism or any sort of respectable 3-ball is too much for Boban, making him only truly effective against plodders like Aron Baynes, who the Sixers wouldn’t face until at least the conference finals.
For those keeping track, that leaves a core rotation of seven players: Simmons (roughly 38 minutes per game), Redick (32), Butler (38), Harris (38), Embiid (36), Ennis (28), and Scott (24). That leaves approximately six minutes open, and the hope is that either Ennis or Scott can handle them, or the Sixers can find use for one of the other backups.
These playoffs are going to teach the NBA world a lot about the Sixers, from Embiid’s and Simmons’ ceilings to how much the stars vs. role players balance can be tipped one way. There are myriad variables that will contribute to just how far the team goes; depending on what buttons are pushed, changes will be made this summer.
Elton Brand‘s first season as general manager is shaping up to be one of the most exciting in Sixers history. How it ends will test him even more.