Elton Brand did not acquire any guards in the flurry of trades before the deadline, so T.J. McConnell will have to step up in the playoffs.
The Philadelphia 76ers‘ backcourt defense and bench play has cost the team games for the entirety of the Process, and now that the team actually wants to win, the team cannot accept the ease at which other teams’ guards penetrate the paint and the production dropoff which happens when multiple reserves enter the game.
T.J. McConnell sits at the root of both of those problems, but he also serves as a solution: he is the only traditional point guard on the 76ers’ roster, and while his scrappiness and occasional good play endeared him to fans when the team won fewer than 20 games per year over three seasons, his lack of shooting ability, athleticism, and solidity in half-court defensive sets has made him into a liability on this competitive Sixers team.
The University of Arizona product’s value comes in short bursts, and the Sixers have not done him any favors with their inaction in regards to bringing in another classic floor general. He likes to track his man full-court, annoying them with his mere presence and causing turnovers. McConnell posts the fifth-highest steal percentage in the league at 2.7 percent, even with Jimmy Butler and trailing only Paul George, Marcus Smart, James Harden, and Chris Paul.
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McConnell will have the most important job to do of any 76ers bench player in the playoffs because of the strength of the backup point guards in the Eastern Conference. Philly knows what it will get out of Boban Marjanovic, and the newly acquired wing trio of James Ennis, Mike Scott, and Jonathon Simmons will all heat up sporadically, so the point guard leaves the biggest question mark.
The fourth-year guard will have to face off against a combination of notorious Sixers strangler Terry Rozier, Spencer Dinwiddie, Fred VanVleet, and Tyreke Evans, all of whom play considerably larger roles for their respective teams and have more raw athleticism than the Sixers’ reserve. McConnell averages one of the highest steal percentages in the league along with stealing it 2.1 times per-36 minutes, but his 0.2 defensive box plus-minus illustrates how he often gambles to make those steals, and if he misses, his lack of athleticism takes him totally out of the play.
The team knows what McConnell will provide on offense: he can score a handful of points as he averages 6.3 in 19.5 minutes per game, and he also dishes out 3.6 assists in each contest. The point guard stepped up after Robert Covington‘s poor performance moved him to the bench in the second-round series against Boston. RoCo dropped a single point in game three of the matchup, and McConnell stepped up when Brett Brown started him in Cov’s place, dropping 19 points, eight boards, and five assists.
In 10 career playoff games and 15.5 minutes per postseason game, the hardworking guard has put up 5.5 points, 2.6 boards, and 2.3 assists while hitting 69.4 percent of his shots. He will not have too many opportunities to put shots up in this year’s playoffs now that Philly has two more stars than they did last season, so hitting a high percentage of his attempts while playing solid defense will help the team a lot.
McConnell will also benefit from having better players around him. Since the Tobias Harris trade, Brown has staggered the rotations so at least one of Butler, Embiid, Harris, and Simmons stays on the court at all times. Brown will employ this method of rotation to a higher degree once the postseason starts, and it will take pressure off the bench players in regards to scoring. McConnell should feel a little more liberated in this system and will probably spend more time off the ball as a result. Although he passes well enough, he doesn’t create as many attempts for his teammates as Simmons and he doesn’t strike fear into defenses like the Aussie, Harris, and Butler.
McConnell’s smart play should largely benefit the team as long as he does not overcommit himself defensively and try to do too much on offense. He has to prioritize defense for these playoffs since the five starters will do most of the scoring and most other playoff teams have much more depth than Philly, and as long as he keeps pestering his opponents while not taking too many ill-advised risks, he will help the Philadelphia 76ers more than hurt them in the postseason.