Even in an empty arena, Rivers feeling right at home
PHILADELPHIA » In his 22 seasons as an NBA head coach, Doc Rivers has seen winning streaks and losing streaks, has celebrated last-second shots and shrieked in pain as they’d gone the other way, has won a championship and has been fired.
He knows when something doesn’t matter. He knows when something does. So there was the Sixers’ coach Wednesday, before a game against the visiting Washington Wizards, emphasis on visiting, trying to fully understand what no basketball mind has fully come to explain.
Why, just why, do the Sixers never lose at home?
Why, aside from the last 10 home games of last season being cancelled amid health concerns, had they been able to go through the entire calendar year of 2020 without losing in the Wells Fargo Center?
And when, if it already hasn’t reached that point, will it be considered historic?
“You know, I don’t the answer,” Rivers said.
The topic was relevant in the moment, for the Sixers were 6-1 overall, yet against what had been a reasonable strength of early schedule. That will change Thursday when they visit Brooklyn, which often gives them problems. Then again, so do too many teams when they play anywhere but Broad and Zinkoff Blvd.
While the Sixers rode a 19-game home court winning streak into Wednesday, that was them last season at one point dropping 15 of 17 on the road, a nine-game slide included. By the time they reached the playoffs in neutral Orlando, they were basically inept, falling to the Celtics in four.
That’s not a statistical spike. That’s a fully developed basketball mystery.
“I have been in that environment,” Rivers said. “I coached in Boston for nine years. And that was a pretty dramatic home court advantage. I always thought Philadelphia was a great home court. Utah. There are about six or seven teams that have that.”
Rivers wasn’t the first Sixers coach pressed to explain the inexplicable. He was the second. And in the way Brett Brown calmly, professionally tried to find reason in a basketball operation basically unbeatable on one court and just OK on the rest, he credited the atmosphere.
“It’s the environment,” he said. “There’s no replacement for it.”
Last season, and for a couple of post-process seasons prior, the Sixers did enjoy intense game-night support. Every game was sold out. The fans, for too long conditioned to expect losing, were thrilled to support a competitive, contending team. While no NBA arena is particularly quiet, the Wells Fargo Center is loud beyond reason. That’s not a criticism. That’s an observation from the field. From the loud-speaker operators, to the sideline announcer, to the drum line, to the dancers, to the scoreboard blasts, there is more emphasis from everyone to be heard than almost anywhere else in the league.
Even this season, when fans are not permitted, there is a relentless concert-level blast of sound, with, and you can’t make this up, the cheerleaders jumping around waving cards reading, “Make some noise.”
Strangely, even with no customers to obey the command, the noise is created.
No wonder they had won 33 of their last 35 at home, even with what had been a couple of massive personnel re-makes
“Some of these places we are talking about, Boston being one, Utah being one, there is that,” Rivers said. “Golden State even changed venues and it was still a home-court advantage. So the only thing that stayed the same is the fans and the fever of the fans. And in those cities, there is absolutely an advantage.”
Philadelphia long has enjoyed passionate sports fans. It may have been mentioned that the Eagles have a generous helping. But it hasn’t always translated into what the Sixers have enjoyed from late 2019 into early 2021: Perfection.
There will be a shelf life to that. The unbeaten 2020 was a bit of a quirk, as the Sixers did lose twice at home in late December 2019. With two of the next three WFC games against championship-minded Mi
ami, and another against dangerous Denver, much can change, and in a hurry. Until then, it’s enough to recognize the excellence.
Since there is no all-clear expected soon, chances are that all NBA teams will be made for a long while to play without in-house support. For that, teams can inflate a modest edge with their bench-side manner. As for the Sixers, their bench is more animated than most, enough to be heard even above the Wells Fargo noise-makers.
That can work for a while. It will only work, though, with players who truly care about winning, even when they are not playing. At the play-forpay level, that’s not a given. For the Sixers, though, it has been real.
“You just kind of feel our chemistry continuing to grow,” Shake Milton said. “The guys communicate with one another. And it carries over to the games.”
The Sixers can bring that spirit to road games, too, in the no-fan era. It likely wouldn’t hurt Thursday, when they face a telling road test.
“We shouldn’t be thinking about that,” Rivers said, the Washington game just minutes away. “We haven’t earned that right yet. We’ve done nothing to give us the right to think ahead to anything or anyone. We have a lot to do as far as improving as a team. We have to understand that. And we have to get better.”
In particular, they must become better on the road. They are 2-1 away from home this season, losing when Joel Embiid did not play in Cleveland. That habit of scratching their best player more often in road games would be of some help explaining the difference in their production.
Since it had gone beyond coincidence, something must.