BBall Paul in a game one win against the Celtics:

It was the final five minutes of the game where Reed came up especially big. He entered for Jalen McDaniels at the 5:04 mark and fouled Marcus Smart on an and-1, then grabbed two defensive rebounds and had a sequence that looked like a backbreaker, with Al Horford scoring in the paint after a couple of offensive boards. It was 113-110 Celtics at that point, but Reed came back and hit a couple of clutch free throws to cut the lead to one, then iced it at the line with two more to put the Sixers up four.

For some context, Paul Reed was averaging 0.7 free throws per game in 10.9 minutes on average. He only took 51 free throws the entire season and hit 38 of them, which amounts to 74.5%.

And in the Brooklyn series? He was a whopping 1-1 from the charity stripe in four appearances in 66 minutes of game time.

For him to go 4-4 from the line in the fourth quarter, in the playoffs, in Boston, without Joel Embiid, is pretty huge. Throw in the fact that teammates were up his ass for the Al Horford sequence, and it’s even more impressive, the way he shrugged that off.


“I was really happy for Paul,” Doc Rivers said. “I’m sure they showed it on TV, but a couple of guys really got into him, and it was close to excessive. I kept him in and said ‘hey go win the game, go do something for us.’ But it was pretty hard, we gotta get better at that with him, I was out with the coaches and when I turned around, those 4-5 rebounds, our guys lost their minds. And I kept (saying) ‘guys, it’s a three-point game, can we just relax?” I bet we said that 50 times (Monday night). But last year in general, a young guy like Paul, that could have gone the other way with him, and he just hung in there and made plays for us, and made free throws. I was really proud of him.”

More on that exchange from Maxey: