PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers have a deep group of guards led by Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe in the starting backcourt, but coach Nick Nurse can also turn to his bench and have Quentin Grimes enter the game and make a big impact as well.
Grimes was terrific in Saturday’s 125-121 win over the Charlotte Hornets as he scored 24 points on 7-for-14 shooting and he was 5-for-8 from deep. He knocked down the go-ahead triple with 15.0 seconds left to break a 119-all tie as he continues to be a big piece of Philadelphia’s bench group.
“I mean, just a simple read,” Grimes said of his shot. “They left Tyrese, got to come up, be ready, knock that shot down. Hit a similar shot last year against Brooklyn, but we didn’t come out with a W, but this time, we’re able to come away with a W.”
He played 32 minutes on opening night against the Boston Celtics including making big plays in the fourth and then 30 against the Hornets. If one asks Nurse, he wants to play him more.
“I try to get him starter minutes off the bench,” Nurse said of Grimes. “I don’t know where he ended up for tonight–30–still a little low. It’s really hard when you don’t start a guy to get him into that 35-to-40 range. It just is. It just seems like it’s too quick a sub all the time if you’re going to bring him in three or four minutes into the quarter, but we’ll keep looking around at some stuff.”
Grimes is a huge piece to what the Sixers want to do. His ability to hop off the bench and give Philadelphia a scoring jolt and somebody who can make plays off the dribble is something that not a lot of teams have. If he can continue to give the Sixers this type of production, he can seriously a build a 6th Man of the Year case. Especially, if Nurse can continue to give him the type of minutes he plans to.
