Sixers: What to watch for vs. Heat in second round
What to watch in Sixers-Heat: Bench rotation
So, here’s where the Sixers’ lack of bench depth gets problematic. Miami is a better matchup for Thybulle than Toronto — and he can actually play in Miami, which is nice — but I’m not sure it’s that much better. It’s hard to make players as bad as Thybulle work in the postseason. Until he puts in real work on the jumper you can’t really count on Thybulle night to night.
Conversely, there’s the matter of Georges Niang, who just got tortured defensively by Toronto. He will have another difficult time finding suitable matchups in the Heat series. Niang’s lack of quickness makes it easy to burn him on backdoor cuts. The Heat will hunt him on switches and will make him move when he’s stationed off the ball. You have to stick with him at the start — he’s the best spot-up shooter on the team and he’s been Philly’s top bench guy all season — but if things get dicey, we could see Niang’s minutes dwindle.
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And therein lies the issue, of course. If Thybulle and Niang struggle to stay on the floor, Philadelphia’s perimeter depth is pretty much non-existent. Furkan Korkmaz isn’t exactly a defensive upgrade, Isaiah Joe is great on paper but we’ve hardly seen him, and it’s too early to know if Jaden Springer can even dribble against a playoff defense. So it’s Shake Milton and only Shake Milton who fans can have any real confidence in, and with Shake, confidence is a strong word.
Expect Milton to lead the bench in minutes, if we’re making predictions now. Thybulle could easily take the crown, but again, he’s so bad offensively that it becomes risky to lean on the defensive savant. We could see Korkmaz depending on how the series unfolds — we saw him briefly in the Sixers’ Game 6 shellacking of Toronto — but right now, the four-man group of Reed, Niang, Thybulle, and Milton is probably chiseled in stone. One has to hope so, at least, on the Paul Reed front.