The Sixers’ Paul Reed is serving as Joel Embiid’s backup — and even he’s a bit surprised

NEW YORK — Even Paul Reed is somewhat surprised.

Conventional wisdom suggested that Reed would be the 76ers’ third-string center after the acquisition of Montrezl Harrell.

The belief was that Harrell, the NBA’s 2020 sixth man of the year, would be penciled in as Joel Embiid’s backup. Instead, Reed was No. 2 at last week’s training camp at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. And with Embiid having the night off, Reed started in Monday’s 127-108 preseason-opening victory over the Brooklyn Nets at the Barclays Center.

The third-year player finished with 10 points on 3-for-4 shooting along with five rebounds, three steals and one block in 20 minutes of action. Reed sat out the fourth quarter.

“It felt great,” he said. “You know, I was just out there, getting my teammates open, rolling hard, playing hard, crashing the glass hard.”

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But Reed realizes he has something to improve.

The 6-foot-9, 220-pounder got winded during the game. He’ll use the next couple of days to work on his conditioning and ensure that doesn’t happen again.

Sixers coach Doc Rivers said he will use a combination of Reed, Harrell, and P.J. Tucker to back up Embiid throughout the season. So far, Reed has been getting the reps at that position while also playing power forward.

“I was a little shocked,” he said of being the backup center. “But at the same time, I still want to stay humble, you know? I don’t want to get too bigheaded, you know?

“I want to keep doing what I’m supposed to be doing so I can keep earning more trust and keep getting more minutes.”

But the outcome of Monday’s exhibition game was far from shocking to the former DePaul standout.

In addition to Embiid, the Sixers were without starters James Harden and P.J. Tucker and reserve Danuel House, while the Nets played stars Ben Simmons, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Durant.

Although it was an exhibition game, it was just another example of the Sixers stepping up with their best players sitting out.

“I think we’ve just got a whole bunch of dogs on our team that are ready to eat,” Reed said. “So they get that opportunity, we all know what we have to do.”

Rookie two-way player Julian Champagnie was one of the impressive Sixers. The Staten Island native, who played at St. John’s, finished with 15 points on 5-for-10 shooting — including going 3-of-7 on three-pointers — in his first game on any level inside the Barclays Center. He also had a team-high six rebounds along with three assists and two steals while logging all 18 of his minutes after intermission.

His performance was a drastic improvement from how he played in July for the Sixers’ summer league team.

“Summer league was all right for me,” Champagnie said. “It was kind of a learning curve. So I had a bunch of weeks to stay in Philly and get acclimated with what the guys are doing and playing five-on-five and getting used to the physicality and what my role would be.”

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Adjusting to the NBA has been an up-and-down process for the two-time All-Big East Conference selection. But training camp wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be after he put in the time with teammates the last couple of months.

“It was a lot of learning,” Champagnie said. “It was a lot of learning the plays, learning the defensive schemes and stuff like that. So just a learning curve still. It always going to be a learning curve every day.”