5 Veterans Who Have Made An Impact In This Post Season
The NBA postseason is well and truly underway. The past two weeks have seen the thrills and spills of Playoff basketball with several teams booking their places in the next round while others are still battling it out for the remaining spots in the Conference Semifinals.
In this short span, we have already seen some fantastic individual displays from the usual suspects like Anthony Davis, James Harden, and LeBron James. But there also have been performances from players who have stepped up to the plate for their teams to the surprise of many.
NBA history has proved that no matter how gifted a team is, in order to succeed in the postseason, they need to have thorough-breads amongst them who have been there and done that. The value of such veteran role players is often realized during crunch situations.
This postseason there have been some wily old foxes who have surprised many with their performances so far. While some of them have been able to propel their franchise to the next round, others have fallen just short despite giving it their all.
In this piece, we will take a look at some of them. It is to be noted that the list only considers those who are not current Big-Name players and have completed at least 10 seasons in the league.
#5 JJ Reddick - Philadelphia 76ers
When Philadelphia paid JJ Reddick $23 million for a one year contract, it had raised many eyebrows. However, it ended up as another masterstroke by the 76ers management. If Reddick hadn’t proved his importance to the Sixers in the regular season, he has certainly done so in the postseason.
With the initial absence and subsequent limited playing time for their star center, Joel Embiid, it was important that others stepped up and shared the load with Ben Simmons. Reddick was at the forefront of that effort. The guard averaged 20.0 points in the five-game series including a blitzkrieg in Game 1 when he scored 28 points shooting at over 60% from the field.
Not only did he support Ben Simmons in the backcourt, at times when their Aussie All-Star was on the bench, Reddick was the one who was running the show for the Sixers scoring or facilitating teammates with equal ease.
Considering the fact that he is one of two Sixers who has played Playoff basketball before, his red-hot form in the first round is a good sign for Philly’s Playoff future.