The 76ers are getting a huge boost from their role players

As is the case with most teams built around a pair of All-NBA level talents, the 76ers will go as far as Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons can take them in these playoffs.

Of the two, Embiid had the greater impact in the regular season. Before he suffered a facial fracture on March 28, the 76ers were 15.5 points per 100 possessions better with their All-Star on the floor. While Simmons carried the 76ers to nine consecutive wins following Embiid’s injury — including an impressive blowout victory in Game 1 of their opening round series against the Heat — they had previously struggled in the minutes he was on the court without Embiid, which is to be expected from a first year player in charge of leading a team to the postseason.

Simmons went to another level in those Embiid-less games with averages of 15.6 points, 9.5 rebounds and 9.3 assists per contest, but he also got some much-needed help from his supporting cast. 76ers general manager Bryan Colangelo did well to fill out the starting lineup in the offseason by signing J.J. Redick, who is putting the finishing touches on the best all-around season of his career, and he bolstered their second unit by picking up a pair of sharpshooters in Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova off of the scrap heap after the trade deadline.

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That trio, plus Dario Saric and Robert Covington, has showed up in a big way in the postseason. With them playing as well as they have alongside the two-way dominance of Embiid and Simmons, the 76ers might now have the depth required to make a run in what has turned out to be a wide open race to the Eastern Conference Finals.

The biggest asset each of them bring to the table is their 3-point shooting. The 76ers have made the second-most 3-pointers through four games of the playoffs, and Redick, Belinelli, Iyasova, Saric and Covington have contributed 44 of the team’s 50 made 3s.. Three of them — Saric, Belinelli and Ilyasova — are shooting over 40.0 percent from 3-point range, and Redick is the lone member of the group who is shooting less than his season average from the perimeter, although it hasn’t prevented him from scoring 18.3 points per game on 45.3 percent shooting from the field in their series against the Heat.

The icing on the cake is there’s little positional overlap between them. Whereas Redick is strictly a shooting guard, Belinelli can play the two or the three depending on what the 76ers need. (According to Basketball-Reference, Belinelli has split his minutes at shooting guard and small forward this season, both as a member of the 76ers and the Hawks). Covington’s size and length allows him to play small forward in normal lineups and power forward in smaller lineups, leaving Saric and Ilyasova to fill whichever position is needed in the frontcourt.

That gives 76ers head coach Brett Brown an opportunity to experiment with different lineups, especially when Embiid is on the bench. At a rate of 140.7 points per 100 possessions in their 14 minutes together, one of Philadelphia’s best offensive lineups in these playoffs features Redick, Belinelli, Saric and Ilyasova next to Simmons. With a net rating of 12.2 points per 100 possessions on the same sample size, they’ve also had success switching the offensive-minded Belinelli with the more defensive-minded Covington in the backcourt.

Those lineups wouldn’t likely be as successful as they have been if those players were nothing more than spot-up shooters, but they each have enough diversity in their game to keep the 76ers from being predictable offensively. Redick, for example, was amongst the league leaders in scoring off of screens during the regular season. Those plays made up 17.3 percent of his scoring, and he ranked in the 82.3 percentile with 1.16 points per possession.

With how frequently and efficiently Redick scores in those situations, sometimes the threat alone of him getting free can open up scoring opportunities for Embiid and Simmons:

Belinelli’s game is similar to Redick’s in many ways, though he’s more of a tough shot-taker, tough shot-maker. According to NBA.com, Belinelli converted 50.9 percent of his tightly contested 2-pointers and 34.6 percent of his tightly contested 3-pointers this season. (Those shots accounted for over a third of his total shot attempts). Having someone who is capable of shooting over defenders in volume can make a tremendous difference late in games, both in crunch time and when the shot clock is winding down:

Ilyasova’s value comes primarily from his ability to stretch the floor in guard-like ways as a power forward or center, but he is capable of doing more traditional big man things. He’s grabbed 12 offensive rebounds in four games against the Heat, half of which came in Game 2 alone. Ilyasova is also a decent cutter who runs the floor in transition and knows how to make teams pay for overplaying Simmons or one of the three shooters the 76ers always have on the court:

Then there’s Saric, who has been one of the breakout players of the postseason.

Saric is second to only Simmons in scoring with 18.8 points per game, and all but five of his field goals in the playoffs have been assisted. Outside of the spacing his 3-point shooting provides, he has made his presence felt on the offensive glass (3.3 offensive rebounds per game) and with his playmaking (3.0 assists per game). Saric doesn’t necessarily excel in one particular area on a basketball court — he’s sort of a jack of all trades, master of none — but he’s a versatile scorer who is comfortable finishing in a variety of ways:

The combination gives the 76ers a number of highly skilled players who help make them one of the more unique offensive teams in the league. They put that on full display in Game 1, when they had their point guard (Simmons) attack his defender in the post while their shooting guard (Redick) set a down screen for their power forward (Saric) to pop to the 3-point line for a catch-and-shoot jumper. There aren’t many teams that would even think about putting their point guard, shooting guard and power forward in those positions, mind alone break it out in the opening game of a series against the seventh best defensive team in the NBA:

Redick and Saric have started in basically every game they’ve been available for the 76ers this season, and they’ve been difference-makers on offense. It’s the additions of Belinelli and Ilyasova specifically that have transformed their bench. With those two leading the way, the 76ers currently have the best second unit in the playoffs with a net rating of 11.7 points per 100 possessions. They’ve outscored the Heat by a total of 20 points thus far, making them one of only eight benches with a positive raw plus/minus.

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It’s why Embiid believes the 76ers’ time is now. Adding LeBron James or Paul George to their roster in the offseason certainly wouldn’t hurt their chances of competing in the future, but they already feel as though they have the perfect blend of star power and role players to compete with whatever the Eastern Conference has to offer.