Veteran coach Doc Rivers: ‘We’re going to win with what we have’
PHILADELPHIA — Doc Rivers has been around his sport too long to obsess over the final score of the first exhibition game of any season. He has also been around long enough to know a developing problem when he sees one.
So it was with those dual emotions Thursday that the Sixers’ veteran coach was looking for one thing in preseason home Wells Fargo Center opener: A more sharpened competitive spirit than the one he’d noticed during a 16-point loss Monday in Toronto.
A 125-113 victory over the Raptors in a game the Sixers would lead by 23 would work.
“In training camp, we’re going against each other, day in and day out,” Tobias Harris said. “We played against them a couple days ago and we made some adjustments, especially on the defensive end, of how we wanted to play and our style of basketball, especially getting back on defense.
“So I thought we did a good job going from one game to the next.”
After missing the 123-107 loss Monday, both Harris and Joel Embiid played Thursday, though relatively sparingly. Embiid, who was rested in the opener, clocked 19:56, shot 4-for-10 and settled for 10 points. Harris, who has been battling a sore knee, scored 14 points in 20:23.
Rivers had planned to rest Danny Green, but that plan was scuttled when Matisse Thybulle was a late scratch with right-shoulder soreness. Green started and played 13 minutes, scoring 11 points.
Shooter Isaiah Joe, who had been something of a training-camp star, was bumped up a notch in the rotation, shot 5-for-7 and supplied 15 points in 22 minutes.
“I’m sure Isaiah is not happy that Matisse is not playing,” Rivers said before
the game. “But he’s happy because he knows he will get minutes. We wanted to get a look at him anyway. We were going to sit one of the guards, regardless, today. Matisse just forced our hands.”
According to the Sixers, Thybulle has begun “a personalized rehab plan, and the second-team All-Defense guard will be re-evaluated in a week.
The game was the first in the Wells
Fargo Center since the Sixers’ Game 7 loss to the Atlanta Hawks in the second round of the playoffs, and it unfolded without acknowledgment of AWOL point guard Ben Simmons.
With Simmons holding out of training camp hoping for a trade, the Sixers seemed to wipe him out of their history. Though technically still a part of the organization, Simmons was not noticeable
in any of the elaborate and lengthy video-board montages before and during the game. Also, a recurring scoreboard graphic effectively depicting the five most important Sixers included holdover starters Embiid, Green, Harris and Seth Curry with Thybulle, not Simmons.
The Sixers remain in no hurry to meet Simmons’ demands, nor have other NBA general managers overwhelmed Daryl
Morey with offers. The most recently leaked rumor had the Indiana Pacers interested enough dangle a package including Caris LeVert and Malcolm Brogdon, two in-their-prime talents who have averaged more than 20 points at least once in their careers.
The continuing Simmons absence has opened a skirmish for the starting job between Tyrese Maxey, who started Monday in Toronto, and Shake Milton, who started Thursday and provided five points in 25 minutes. In the more familiar bench role he embraced last season, Maxey played 21 minutes, shot 6-for-9 and scored 14 points.
“We’re going to win with what we have,” Rivers said. “If you’re talking about what we don’t have, you’re talking to the wrong guy. We’re going to win with what we have. We’ve always thought we have a lot of guys to play. And then you figure it out.”
Georges Niang paced the Sixers with 16 points while Curry checked in with 15. Raptor O.G. Anunoby bagged a game-high 22 points.
“I want to see us more organized, more competitive,” Rivers said before the game. “I just thought Toronto was so much more competitive than us in the first game, their mental place, their conditioning, their attacks.
“I thought they were the way more physical team at every position. They’re long anyway, but they’re going to have to be more physical. And I thought they were very physical. They were just more physical. And I’d like to see that change.”
The result, for what it was worth, said it did.
“We had some guys back on the floor after that last loss,” Embiid said. “So it wasn’t the same.”
The preseason continues Monday, when the Sixers will host the Brooklyn Nets at 8.