The Sixers lost to the Raptors on Sunday night by a score of 93-88 with much of Philadelphia’s struggles coming on offense.
“I just didn’t think we had the right approach,” Doc Rivers told the media after the home loss. “Don’t know why but we didn’t tonight, everyone just stood around and watched each other play, that’s not how we’ve been playing so, it’s funny you feel like you’re getting it and then you have one of these, you don’t overdo it but we did not play with any urgency tonight at all, offensively or defensively and we still held them to 93 points.”
Rivers added that the team’s performance against Toronto on Sunday was quite different from their performance against Luka Doncic & Co. on Friday evening.
“We just didn’t execute, we didn’t run our stuff, that’s not the same team that played the other night where the ball was moving, we were running our stuff, we had our spacing, we just didn’t do it tonight, it happens the sun’s coming up tomorrow and we’ll be fine but it’s just no fun to watch when it does happen,” Rivers continued.
Harden on the Loss
“We gotta be better, that’s it, it’s pretty simple and I will be, there’s no thought into it, be better, move on next game,” Harden told the media after the contest.
Raptors could have given Sixers even more trouble?
While Toronto won the contest, Nick Nurse explained that the Raptors didn’t reach their potential in terms of everything they were capable of.
“It went okay,” Nurse said of the Raptors’ gameplan against the Sixers.
“We probably didn’t throw as much stuff as I thought we would’ve. But we did some pretty good things, especially being able to switch there late. We can kind of put a big body in Scottie [Barnes] on [James] Harden and a big body in Precious [Achiuwa] on [Joel] Embiid. And switch that to keep the ball in front a little bit. As best you can. That probably was key in the fourth. I thought we did a pretty good job at getting it out of Harden’s hands in the stretches when he’s playing without Embiid. I mean, I think the ball bounced our way tonight for sure. They had a couple shots that those guys normally make bounce out tonight. So, fortunate bounces.”
More From Philadelphia
- The Sixers’ offense becomes more unstoppable when Matisse Thybulle is hitting shots and Harden recently spoke about the confidence he has in the wing to continue to do so. “Especially if it’s in rhythm, he’s open. Shoot it. He knocked a couple down today. At least a couple I think,” Harden said over the weekend. “But just his confidence. He puts the work in for it. Shoot the shot. He makes a couple of those and the game opens up for him a lot. He works so hard defensively that he deserves to get a couple offensively.”
- ICYMI: Embiid spoke at length about why he continues to go by The Process and explains why he believes the NBA pushed out Sam Hinkie.
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