Quentin Grimes flashes his upside while playing hard, knocking down shots in Sixers debut

DETROIT — One of the few bright spots for the 76ers Friday was the play on Quentin Grimes in his franchise debut.

The shooting guard finished with 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting — including two three-pointers — along with two rebounds, two assists and one block in the 125-112 loss to the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena.

“He was great,” Tyrese Maxey said. “He was really good, defensively, offensively, especially for a guy that doesn’t know much [about the Sixers’ system]. He played extremely hard and we’re going to need that moving forward.”

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The Sixers (20-31) acquired Grimes along with a second round pick in exchange for Caleb Martin in a trade from the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday. But the deal was amended on Thursday when the Sixers also sent Dallas a second-round pick due to Martin having a hip injury.

That led to Grimes making his debut one game later than expected. He was also unable to join that squad in a practice setting until Friday morning’s shootaround.

But he checked into the game at the 4-minute, 46-second mark of the first quarter. Grimes, in his fourth NBA season, scored his first two points as a Sixer from the foul line 2:38 later. Then he buried a three-pointer on his first shot attempt with 44.6 seconds remaining in the quarter.

“I thought it was good,” Grimes said of his debut. “I mean come out and don’t know too much about the plays in the offense, and this is the first time playing with new guys… [But] you have to go out there and play hard. You have to go out there and stay aggressive, play my game and everything will kind of flow, kind of figure things out, I feel like slowly.

The Houston native acknowledged that the Sixers, who trailed 78-49 at intermission, had an ugly first half. That’s when they made just 2 of 10 three-pointers. Grimes went 1 of 2 from deep before intermission. Maxey had the other three-pointer in four attempts.

The Sixers were also getting torched on the defense. The Pistons (26-26) shot 52% from the field — including making 11 of 23 three-pointers in the first half.

“In the second half we picked it up,” Grimes said. “I thought we looked good in the second half.”

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The next step for him is learning the plays and getting comfortable playing alongside his teammates. He’ll get an opportunity to work on that during Saturday’s practice in Milwaukee ahead of Sunday’s game against the Bucks at Fiserv Forum.

He’s focused on learning his teammates’ tendencies, where they like the ball, where they like to space the floor at, and where they like for him to space at. Grimes is also focused on watching game film.

But no one is complaining about his start.

“I thought it was great,” Paul George said. “Great energy, made plays. He made you know the right plays. I thought he was aggressive … I thought he has a ton of upside, you know, in what he brings and his value to this team.”