Nick Nurse doesn’t want to draw hasty conclusions during his first preseason as Sixers head coach.
But when asked Tuesday about early standouts, he thought the answer was clear.
“It’s one game, so you don’t try to go too far,” Nurse said after practice at the Sixers’ training complex in Camden, New Jersey. “But I thought obviously Jaden Springer stood out a great deal in the game. He guarded hard; he rebounded hard; he finished at the basket; he sunk a couple of shots.
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“He played very (well). I would say that’s probably the guy. When you’ve got 20 guys out here and you’ve got lots of teams running in and out, you can’t quite notice or focus on everybody, right? But he certainly stood out.”
Springer played 24 excellent minutes off the bench Sunday in the Sixers’ preseason-opening loss to the Celtics and notched 14 points on 5-for-7 shooting, five rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block.
Beyond the numbers, Springer’s variety of positive moments jumped out. He played with both force and savviness on many plays besides his highlight block of Jayson Tatum.
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The 21-year-old secured one of his four offensive rebounds by darting in from the wing, bumping Jrue Holiday to gain inside position and scrapping against Holiday and Derrick White until the ball was his.
On one third-quarter play, Springer fought through a Kristaps Porzingis screen and stayed on Jaylen Brown’s body. When Brown kicked the ball back out to Porzingis and he drove toward the middle, Springer waited at the nail and poked free a steal.
“Just trying to use my body,” Springer said. “Wall up, don’t use my hands too much. Just slide my feet and trust in my teammates. That’s what we’ve been working on — your teammates having your back and being in the gaps.”
He especially enjoyed making a couple of fruitful slot cuts in Boston, including one where Tyrese Maxey set him up for a dunk.
As the Sixers are learning the nuances of Nurse’s system, they’ve received some auditory assistance. Among the noises overhead from outside of the gym Tuesday was a jackpot machine sound.
“That’s a slot cut,” said Nurse, who acknowledged with a chuckle that, “There’s lots of noises going on here.”
Springer has been working with Nurse and his coaching staff since before summer league, so he’s relatively well-accustomed to the Sixers’ new norms.
“It’s great because that’s what we work on every day,” Springer said. “That same exact cut, that same exact play, we work on it every day. So being able to go out there in the game and get a pass from Tyrese like that, it was big time.”
With three preseason games to go, Springer will hope to keep building on those habits, making open jumpers (he went 2 for 2 from three-point range Sunday), and standing out to his coach for good reasons. The Sixers will host Boston on Wednesday night.
“I think he played amazing,” Paul Reed said of Springer. “We all know that he’s got that dog in him. We know that’s what he (does). I’m just glad that he was able to display that to everybody.”