Tag: Paul Reed

Sixers coach Doc Rivers details expectations for Paul Reed with Blue Coats

Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers explains his plan for rookie Paul Reed with the Delaware Blue Coats.

The Philadelphia 76ers selected a pretty intriguing prospect with the 58th pick in the 2020 NBA draft in Paul Reed. He is a bouncy, athletic big man who has the potential to be a solid rotational player in the league.

However, in order to develop, he will need the necessary court time to be able to make mistakes and grow and learn from them.

So, the rookie out of DePaul is being sent down to the G League bubble in Orlando where the team’s G League affiliate, the Delaware Blue Coats, are set to begin their season on Thursday against the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.

Reed did play five games with the Sixers and averaged 3.6 points and 2.0 rebounds, but he will get more playing time in Delaware. Coach Doc Rivers does not have anything specific he wants him to work on, he just wants him to be able to play and learn from Blue Coats coach Connor Johnson.

“Not really,” said Rivers. “I just think Paul is a real athlete and I just want him to play, just go play basketball. I think we need to watch Paul a lot more before we decide on what he needs to do.”

In the brief NBA playing time he received, he showed that he can be athletic at this level, but he also needs to play basketball at the highest level and understand the execution.

“For us, what we told Connor is just do what you see, let him play, coach him, make sure he understands the discipline of execution on both ends of the floor,” Rivers expanded. “That’s what a lot of the raw athletes, they come in and they’re just running wild and we don’t want him that. We want him to understand the discipline of execution, and that’s what we expect.”

Rivers will keep in contact with Johnson and be able to relay any instructions from the big team. Normally, the G League coaching staff would be with the NBA team during training camp, but that could be the case this season due to the pandemic.

“I think it’s very important,” Rivers added. “Obviously, with COVID, this year especially for new incoming coaches had made it very difficult, because in most cases we would have had Connor and his whole staff with us at training camp and kind of watch what we’re doing. This year, we couldn’t have them in the building.”

The Sixers, meanwhile, will take on the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday to begin a road trip out west.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Philadelphia 76ers player grades for the season at the 20-game mark

We are giving each player on the Philadelphia 76ers a letter grade for their performance to begin the season.

The Philadelphia 76ers are at the 20-game mark which means just a bit more in a shortened 72-game season. Obviously, there is still a ton of basketball left to be played and a lot to sort out before the playoffs begin, but the Sixers are off to a terrific start that has fans excited.

After a win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday, they sit atop the Eastern Conference at 14-6 and they are squarely in the hunt to reach the NBA Finals along with top dogs in the East. For the sake of efficiency, we focus on the players who have played a significant amount this season, enabling us to judge them on their play.

With that said, here is the report card at the quarter mark of the season:

Sixers rookie Paul Reed to join Blue Coats in G League bubble in Orlando

The Philadelphia 76ers will send rookie Paul Reed to the G League bubble in Orlando.

It is almost time for the G League to begin the 2020-21 season after their year got delayed due to the global coronavirus pandemic. They are set to head down to Orlando and play the season in the bubble as the NBA did to finish the 2019-20 season.

The Delaware Blue Coats, the G League affiliate of the Philadelphia 76ers, will be heading down to Orlando on Wednesday and they will be bringing one of the big team’s rookies with them.

Paul Reed, who was the 58th overall pick in the 2020 NBA draft, will be joining the Blue Coats in Orlando. He has played in five games with the Sixers and he has averaged 3.6 points and 2.0 rebounds. His best game came against the Denver Nuggets when they played only seven players and he had six points and seven rebounds in that game.

The Sixers will be looking to bounce back from a bad loss on Monday and they will take on the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday at home.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Doc Rivers focused on Sixers development, player health in tough times

Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers is focused on development and keeping his players healthy during these tough times.

The Philadelphia 76ers are in dire straits right now as they are down nine players at the moment due to health and safety protocols and various injuries this early in the season. This is the landscape that the league is dealing with as they wade into the murky waters of the global coronavirus pandemic.

The Sixers had to play a game on Saturday against the Denver Nuggets leaning on three rookies in the starting lineup–Tyrese Maxey, Dakota Mathias, and Isaiah Joe–and then another rookie off the bench–Paul Reed–who played significant minutes against a Western Conference Finalist.

Due to the tough times, coach Doc Rivers is focused on development and keeping his players healthy more than anything else right now until he gets his team back.

“Development, number one,” Rivers started. “Health is number two because I think what we’re missing in this is COVID created this, but the concern is not COVID now, the concern is injuries because guys are playing so many minutes because we don’t have enough guys.”

In Saturday’s game, Maxey played 43:45, Joe played 44:51, and Mathias played 41:03 as they had to play heavy minutes due to the situation presented to them. Reed also played 26:11 after playing a grand total of 1:24 in the NBA entering Saturday.

“I think if I was deciding games in that way I would be very careful if I’m in the league,” Rivers added. “You don’t want that to happen either and so, for example, I’m looking at our stat sheet we had 1, 2, 3 guys plus 40 and it couldn’t be avoided. Now we play again in two days, then we play again, and so that’s my concern with this is that we got to be very careful in how we navigate over the next week.”

It is important that Rivers and his coaching staff do their best to manage these young player’s minutes. On one side, it’s important that they get this type of experience for their future, but on the other side, playing too many high-stress minutes for a guy who has not played that many minutes in the past can cause an injury in some cases.

Of course, the Sixers could possibly have Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid return on Monday as they both cleared the league’s protocols. They were late scratches against the Nuggets due to Simmons having knee stiffness and Embiid dealing with back issues. If they could return, that would be a huge lift to the lineup. If not, then the Sixers will have to keep it pushing,

“Our staff does a really good job of communicating to us beforehand on things like that,” said Joe. “I think a week like we’re gonna have we just got to be prepared for anything. Whether we have some players come back, whether we have to play seven again, we’re definitely prepared for whatever we have in front of us, but they definitely do a great job of letting us know as early as possible.”

The Sixers will battle Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks at 7:30 p.m. EST on Monday.

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3 observations: Tyrese Maxey impresses, seven Sixers fall to Nuggets

Rookie Tyrese Maxey had an impressive game, but the Philadelphia 76ers fell to the Denver Nuggets at home in tough circumstances.

The Philadelphia 76ers played a basketball game on Saturday, well, sort of. It was a game that was played under extreme circumstances as the team was missing nine players due to injury and health and safety protocols and they had to start three rookies against the Denver Nuggets.

The result was a predictable 115-103 loss for their first home loss since December of 2019. Despite the loss, there were some bright spots for the Sixers to take from this one.

The big one is the play of rookie Tyrese Maxey who continues to impress as he scored 39 points with six assists, seven rebounds, and only two turnovers. Isaiah Joe also scored in double figures with 13, Danny Green contributed 11, and Dwight Howard had 11 and 11 rebounds and he made history in the process passing Hakeem Olajuwon for 13th place on the league’s all-time rebounding list.

With that said, here are the three observations:

Joel Embiid, two others cleared from protocols, Sixers-Nuggets game on

Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid and two others have cleared protocols, allowing the game against the Denver Nuggets to be played.

The Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets will, in fact, play a game on Saturday. Despite the fact that the Sixers will be severely shorthanded, the two teams will meet at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. EST as scheduled.

The Sixers stayed in New York on Thursday following their loss to the Brooklyn Nets as the team followed the league’s protocols for health and safety as they navigate the season through the current murky waters of the global pandemic. Seth Curry found that he tested positive for the virus and the team had to be quarantined in their Manhattan hotel.

After contact tracing, it had been originally ruled that the Sixers were down to only six healthy players heading into Saturday afternoon’s game. Now, three players have been cleared from the protocols just ahead of the game and that group is Joel Embiid, Danny Green, and rookie Paul Reed. The Sixers now have nine healthy players available making the game ready to play and can avoid postponement.

These will be tough circumstances to play under for Philadelphia, but this is what the NBA is up against in these current times. It is, unfortunately, what the current world situation presents at the moment and they will have to band together in order to play at their best.

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Joel Embiid among handful of Sixers questionable for matchup vs. Nuggets

Joel Embiid is among a handful of Philadelphia 76ers who are questionable against the Denver Nuggets.

The Philadelphia 76ers are still dealing with the aftermath of the news of starting shooting guard Seth Curry test positive for the novel coronavirus on Thursday evening. The team is still currently in New York as they await instruction on how to get back to Philadelphia.

They spent the entire day at the New York hotel undergoing testing and contact tracing and there are now a handful of players who will be questionable for Saturday afternoon’s matchup with the Denver Nuggets at home.

One of them is superstar big man Joel Embiid who is one of the early MVP candidates in the league at the moment. On top of that, Tobias Harris, Danny Green, Matisse Thybulle, Shake Milton, Vincent Poirier, and Paul Reed are all considered questionable for the game on Saturday due to the tracing and being considered “close contacts” to Curry.

The Sixers will already enter the game missing Furkan Korkmaz, Mike Scott, and Terrance Ferguson due to injuries, and then Curry is obviously out as well. If all of the players who are questionable can’t play, Philadelphia would be down to only six healthy players which would postpone the game. The  NBA rule is to have eight players healthy to play the game.

The Sixers will have to wait for the results of more COVID tests and they will need to hear back from the NBA on the status of the other players to see if the game can even be played.

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Tobias Harris, other veterans reveal how they help Sixers youngsters

Tobias Harris and the other Philadelphia 76ers veterans open up on how they will help the youngsters.

The current state of the NBA is hard to navigate for anybody let alone a rookie trying to transition from college to the league. The global pandemic has thrown everything out of whack, everything is shortened and everything is moving at 100 miles per hour.

That means it is more important than ever that veterans step up and help the rookies out. The draft was a little over a month ago, and these guys are about to make their NBA debuts in a few days.

For the Philadelphia 76ers, rookies Tyrese Maxey, Isaiah Joe and Paul Reed  figure to be around the team a lot, and they will have to rely on the vets to make sure they get the necessary help.

“They’re young guys coming into the league,” said veteran Tobias Harris who was drafted in 2011. ” A lot thrown at them, especially this type of season. It kind of reminds me of when I came in the league in the lockout year. It wasn’t much communication because there was a lockout going on, straight to playing, so just making sure they’re good on and off the floor.”

There are plenty of players on this team who can help the rookies get acquainted with the league, not just Harris, and they will certainly be doing their part. It is important for a guy such as Mike Scott, for example, to help them out along the way.

“I look forward to it a lot,” said Scott. “I was in their shoes nine, eight years ago, and I had vets do the same thing for me. I had different types of vets. You get the crazy, wild vets, and you get the professional, do what you’re supposed to do vets, and I’m kind of in-between that. I like to give them the real, give them some game that feels different than a coach or someone else giving it to them. They’ll probably understand a little bit more coming from me and I enjoy that.”

It also is important to have somebody who is going to work out with the rookies and show a more work-ethic-based example of leadership rather than to always talk about stuff. That is where somebody like Seth Curry comes in.

“I’m more of a lead by example type of guy and, obviously, giving the young guys some pointers here and there,” Curry explained. “Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been shooting a lot with Isaiah Joe after practice, and he’s kind of been tailing along and try to learn some stuff.”

At the end of the day, there is only so much veterans can do. The rookies will have to step up, ask questions and learn on their own as well with the pointers that they get from their elders.

“We have a really good group of young guys who are hard workers,” Harris added. “They listen. They want to get better, and they ask a lot of good questions to try to learn what’s going on. Tyrese, Isaiah, Paul, Matisse (Thybulle), those are all guys that I want to see have a great future in this league. Those are guys that honestly have been having a really good training camp by the way that they’ve been playing. It’s exciting to see that, too.”

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NBA: Philadelphia 76ers 2020-21 roster

Here is the final roster for the Philadelphia 76ers as they head into the 2020-21 NBA season.

The Philadelphia 76ers are one of the more intriguing teams in the league heading into the 2020-21 NBA season. The team is led by two young stars in Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid and they figure to be in the conversation for championship contention in the Eastern Conference.

That sets the table for Philadelphia’s roster overall which has undergone some dramatic changes following a disappointing 2019-20 season. The team made a couple of big trades on draft night including sending Al Horford to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Danny Green as well as sending Josh Richardson to the Dallas Mavericks for Seth Curry. Those two additions are expected to play a major role when the season begins.

With that being said, let’s check out the full 2020-21 version of the Philadelphia 76ers:

Matisse Thybulle ready to take Sixers rookies under his wing in 2020-21

Philadelphia 76ers rookie Matisse Thybulle is ready to take the rookies under his wing in the 2020-21 season.

Philadelphia 76ers wing Matisse Thybulle had himself an interesting rookie season in 2019-20. He had to handle the responsibility of providing a 3-and-D presence to the team as well as all of the rookie duties the veterans threw at him.

He had to handle all of that while also transitioning from college to the NBA and he also had to deal with the effects of a global pandemic that suspended the season in March and he then couldn’t finish his rookie season until August when the season resumed.

As new rookies Tyrese Maxey, Isaiah Joe, and Paul Reed come into the fold, they will also be dealing with some unprecedented stuff. They will have very little time to get acclimated to the team before the season tips off with no summer league to prepare and very little communication with their new team.

“It’s a hard one for our rookies,” said coach Doc Rivers. “They’re all in now and doing individual workouts. It’s so separated right now. Just think on the first day of camp, our rookies probably won’t know the other players on the team. That’s insane and I guarantee you they won’t know them.”

That is where Thybulle will come in and teach them the ways of the NBA.

“There’s so much to learn,” Thybulle said. “You get a lot thrown at you so however I can help these guys out, I’d be happy to do it because it’s hard when you don’t have a lot of people who have been through what you’re about to embark on. I had it pretty good and pretty rough. It was a combination of everything so I think I’ve seen a lot in terms of what can happen as a rookie.”

Throughout the season, the veteran players on the Sixers such as Tobias Harris would send Thybulle on runs to go to Popeye’s or Chick-fil-A to get the team some food before their road trips. He had issues with this at times as it became almost comical to watch.

Being in his second season, he does not have that type of authority with the rookies just yet.

“I don’t know if I’ve earned that status yet,” he said with a laugh. “I think I have a couple more years before I can send guys on Popeye’s or Chick-fil-A runs.”

The main thing is that he is there to help. He is not a veteran or anything, but with what he experienced as a rookie, he will able to help his younger teammates into this next transition of their career.

In some ways, the lack of camp and the lack of time allows them to not overthink and to just play basketball.

“As coaching staffs, you don’t wait,” Rivers added. “You get going so we’re going to throw these guys right in the fire. In some ways, that may be good. They don’t overthink and some will struggle. I think for the rookies this year, the mental toughness factor will be gigantic.”

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