Sixers

Obviously Danuel House was the Secret Weapon All Along

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: May 10th, 2023 · 2:20 PM EDT

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Raise your hand if you had Danuel House Jr. playing a huge role off the bench in game four against the Boston Celtics.

…

Yeah, me neither, but the 29-year-old wing gave the Sixers 15 rock solid minutes on Tuesday night, scoring 10 points on 5-7 shooting while grabbing five rebounds and tossing an assist. Every single one of his buckets came on tough transition opportunities at the rim:

Danuel House was a transition monster in game four. Killer baskets all night long. pic.twitter.com/aaj5D9Rw4U

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) May 10, 2023

Those are not easy buckets by any stretch of the imagination. He’s got a 4v1 on the first basket and decides to just take it himself with the left hand. Same thing on bucket two, when he drives right at Malcolm Brogdon and seems to catch him off guard. The cherry on top is a tough alley oop that pushes the lead back to 19 with about seven minutes remaining.

The pick of the bunch, however, is that three-point pump fake and Euro step to the rack. Holy shit! Keep in mind, he’s trying that having played just 13 prior minutes in the entirety of the playoffs. House really was assertive in this game, and that has to be the takeaway. He wasn’t deferential or passive out there. He wanted the ball and didn’t shy away from anything. Even those two three-pointers that he missed were good looks that he stepped right into.

It’s interesting to think about from a larger perspective, because House fell out of the rotation entirely this season, despite being one of the guys that the Sixers brought in as a result of James Harden taking less money. The midseason trade for Jalen McDaniels seemed to foretell the playoff rotation, but McDaniels has been underwhelming, and so House, who has played a lot of prior minutes with Harden, gets the game four nod and performs admirably.

Really nice sidebar story from game four, which was probably the best Sixers playoff win in 20+ years.

Danuel House Jr. on how he stayed ready: "Beating up on Reggie [Redding], my player development coach, me and him been playing 1-on-1. He’s been on me, showing me clips, talking to me about certain moves, telling me to stay ready, that I'm gonna be big when my number is called." pic.twitter.com/vkzgh7oRWR

— Rich Hofmann (@rich_hofmann) May 10, 2023