At break, plentiful signs of a ‘great team’
PHILADELPHIA » The Los Angeles Lakers were politely dribbling out the final four seconds of the 2008 NBA season when the Celtics’ Paul Pierce accepted the responsibility to behave like a captain.
Dutifully, he would grab a bucket, sneak behind an unsuspecting Doc Rivers, and flood his coach with six gallons of blood-red, watery goo, vandalizing a $1,000 suit-and-tie ensemble.
With that, Boston had its
17th world championship. With that, Rivers would embrace a responsibility of his own.
He knew then, and he has been reminded ever since, that he forever would be a leading authority on how championship teams are built, grow, sound, feel, look, and by all means, how they prefer their sports drinks.
That knowledge of how to win a championship as a head coach is why the Sixers are paying him about
$8 million a year. And since their first $4 million this season bought them a firstplace team at the All-Star break, the question zooming Rivers’ way the other day was as fair as it was necessary as it was predictable.
The Sixers: Do they have that championship makeup, the kind that only a head coach of a championship team can sense?
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rivers said, just before the All-Star break. “I’ve been asked that, but haven’t thought that deeply about it. But we do have some similar things, like being able to come out of a timeout and run a post play, knowing we are going to get something out of that. It’s the greatest run-stopper of all time.
“We have a player like
Joel (Embiid). Back then, we had K.G. (Kevin Garnett). Good things happen. Either one of them can get up a shot, and we end up with a great shot out of a timeout. So there’s that. But then, there’s our defense. We are fourth in the league now defensively. That team was No.1 in the league by a long way. But I do think by the end of the year, we have a real chance to be No. 1 defensively. By improving our transition defense alone, I think we can get up to No. 1.”
That’s Rivers’ position, and has been since training camp, such as it was: The development will be season-long. But in springing to a 24-12 record, a halfgame ahead of Brooklyn, the Sixers have shown plentiful championship characteristics. Embiid has been an MVP candidate. Tobias Harris should have been an All-Star. Ben Simmons is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, with Rivers as his spokesman. “This is probably my last campaign,” he said. “Except for president.” It’s a reasonable issue. At his best, Simmons can change a game with his defense.
The Embiid-Harris-Simmons trio is on the level of Garnett, Pierce and Ray Allen of Rivers’ championship Celtics. So there is a foundation of talent. But championship teams require millionaires accepting roles. Daryl Morey has given Rivers just enough star players, just enough young players, and just enough end-ofcareer veterans that every role makes sense. The Sixers essentially have two units, both functioning well, with no player on one yelling that he belongs on the other. In the activist-agent era, which has expanded even since
2008, such clubhouse peace is invaluable.
“We talked about it before the season, that without cooperation, you can’t be a good team,” Rivers said. “Our guys are buying into what we are asking them to do. I have an unbelievable staff with me in Dan (Burke) and David (Joerger) and Sam (Cassell). We get along. Everybody. And we are working together as a group. If we keep doing that, we’re going to get better.”
To win a championship in a league set up to draw the great players to the great teams around the trade deadline, which this season will arrive March
25, continuing growth is mandatory. The Nets just added Blake Griffin. The Sixers must counter, adding a point guard, another big body and one more veteran scorer. From there, Rivers will be challenged to maintain a winning chemistry. He’s good at that.
“Every single night, we know what we have to do,” Embiid said. “We take pride in that. And we go out and do our jobs.”
That was the situation in the final game before the break, a 131-123 overtime victory over the Western Conference-leading Utah
Jazz. Not that any particular game in any NBA season means much, but Rivers came out of that one with a greater sense that, yes, something special is happening this season at the Wells Fargo Center.
“I think we already know we can be good,” Rivers said. “But any time you win a game that you can possibly lose and you stay in and win, it says a lot about you and your mental toughness. We’re going to have games like this in the second half, where it looks like you may be out of it. But if you hang in there, you can still win it. So moving forward, I think
it’s a big message for our team.”
The season resumes with a visit from the Bulls at 8 Thursday night, and the second-half schedule appears difficult. The Nets improved with Griffin. The Milwaukee Bucks lurk.
“We don’t get anything at halftime of a season,” Rivers said. “I look at it like we are playing good basketball. But there is a great team in us.”
Thirteen years later, it’s still just a matter of it all spilling out.