Philadelphia 76ers: Maximizing J.J. Redick in the playoffs

The Philadelphia 76ers are postseason bound and with such an impressive starting five, J.J. Redick can’t be lost in the folds during the playoffs.

This Philadelphia 76ers club will be scary come the postseason time. The starting five of Ben Simmons, J.J. Redick, Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris and Joel Embiid has gone 7-1 when playing together. Embiid and Simmons were All-Stars this season. Butler and Harris are borderline All-Stars this year with Butler having several All-Star selections under his belt from the previous season. However, how the Sixers use Redick this post season might be the most important thing.

The other four starters can create offense for themselves on varying degrees. Embiid can dominate in the paint, Butler is the best one-on-one offensive player off the dribble and both Harris and Simmons are lethal in transition. Redick’s offense game comes off of catch-and-shoots, along with dribble-handoffs.

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Don’t be mistaken that Redick is the weak link of the starting five on offense. He makes this starting five work, only he and Harris shoot well above 35.0 percent from the 3-point line. Redick is the best pure shooter between the two since Harris has joined Philly. Redick is actually one of the best 3-point shooters in the NBA. He has a career average of 41.3 percent from downtown, which is eighth best among active players.

Granted this year isn’t as great, he’s struggled from the 3-point line a little with a season average of 39.4 percent from the arc, which is ranked 34th this season. Despite this down year in 3-point percentage, he’s still averaging a career high of 17.8 points per game. In the playoffs, his 3-point shooting will be key in floor spacing for Simmons and Embiid to work inside the paint.

For those who think just putting Redick in the corner for kickouts from the paint will be a good enough role for the veteran, think again. He’s shot a career low on corner 3-pointers this season at 31.6 percent and he’s also shooting the lowest percentage of his 3-pointers from there this season as well.

This isn’t to say that he isn’t a good catch-and-shoot player this season. He’s 42.5 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers this season. Another impressive ability Redick’s been able to score is on pull-up 2-pointers, hitting 50.5 percent of those shots. The highlight below can show what Redick does when he’s hot from the floor.

When it comes to the playoffs, head coach Brett Brown will have to run plays for the hot hand, sometimes that will be Redick. However, Redick should be hitting his shots within the flow of the offense like seen in the highlights above.

Redick can actually be a decoy on offense that Brown can deploy and due to his sharpshooting reputation, it will open up the floor for one of the other starters to get open shots. However, unless Redick proves to be hot that particular game, Brown shouldn’t run too many plays for the veteran marksman.

With so much talent in the Philadelphia 76ers starting five, Brown has the luxury of running plays for the player that is going off for that particular game. Redick can be used as a decoy on nights he hasn’t caught fire, but hitting shots off catch-and-shoots along with dribble hand-offs will be his main offensive role in the playoffs.