Role Players Continue To Shine In The Playoffs

Minnesota Timberwolves' Naz Reid is the most recent player to put on a huge display

These NBA playoffs have been nothing short of spectacular.

Despite some fairly uninteresting first-round series, this month has kept fans on the edge of their seats. While the featured superstars have led the teams throughout the postseason, we can’t deny the fact that the “role players” continue to donate in a large way.

Even though the Minnesota Timberwolves lost to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 2, they made a wise move during the battle. After Karl-Anthony Towns scored just 15 points on a rough 25% shooting, Timberwolves’ assistant head coach Micah Nori decided to bench and let Naz Reid fill his position for the last eight minutes. Within that span, Reid scored five points on 66.7% shooting. He finished the game with a team-high 23 points on 61.5% shooting, not to mention the seven 3-pointers he connected on.

That is just one instance of a role player contributing in his own way.

While being guided by the electrifying backcourt of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, the Mavericks have also been receiving tons of help from P.J. Washington. During these playoffs, he is averaging 13.9 points and 6.7 rebounds but his presence was made in the Western Conference Semifinals against the Oklahoma City Thunder. In that series, he averaging 17.7 points and 8.3 rebounds while turning in three straight games with 20-plus points.

The East has also seen a team-oriented player get his shine. Though the championship-favorite Boston Celtics have depended on Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to get the job done, Derrick White has once again shown to be reliable. During the first round against the Miami Heat, he logged in an average of 22.4 points which contained a career-high 38-point effort in Game 4.

Although the New York Knicks are now absent from the playoffs, they saw a massive and, quite frankly, unsurprising force from shooting guard Donte DiVincenzo. After a huge season of averaging 15.5 points, he carried it into the postseason. While Jalen Brunson torched games offensively, DiVincenzo came through on offense and, most importantly, defense. Not only did he commit 1.2 steals per contest, he was active in deflecting passes and contesting jump shots.

With these extra sparks from the “non-superstar" players, we could even start seeing a few pay raises in the near future.

Cory Nelson is a contributor to Fansided’s Wiz of Awes. He attended Northern Virginia Community College. He can be reached at corymckenzienelson@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter @CKenzyNelson, Instagram @ckenzynelson, and Threads @ckenzynelson