The Philadelphia 76ers are continuing to push forward and get ready for the 2020-21 season. They have a relatively new team and a new coaching staff to help Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid get the team back on track.
Due to a lot of newness around the team and the short amount of time they have to get everybody on the same page, coach Doc Rivers will be working in some of the guys a lot during their two preseason games. The first one is on Tuesday at home against the Boston Celtics and then Friday against the Indiana Pacers.
“I’m not going to mess around,” Rivers stated. “I’m not going to play guys 48 minutes, but I’m going to play our key guys, at least in the first half, a lot of minutes. Just let them kind of feel the rotation and then the second half, probably go back to preseason basketball.”
It makes sense for Rivers to play his main pieces a lot in the early part of the game. There are a lot of new pieces as well as the implementation of a new offensive scheme where everybody needs to get comfortable in and the two preseason games will be used to get everybody involved and on the same page.
On top of that, it is important to be sure that they get that feeling of playing a competitive basketball game again. These guys have not played a game since the bubble, some have not played since March, and being able to get that feel again is something that Rivers wants to see in preseason.
“I think the conditioning is good,” he said of his team. “It’s so hard to tell because you’re not playing against anybody but yourself. In front of each other, we look like we’re in decent shape. That’s what I would say, as a group, we’re in decent shape. Better shape, honestly, than I thought we would be and I’ve heard that leaguewide from most coaches that they everybody’s been kind of surprised with the conditioning levels so so that’s a good thing.”
However, at the end of the day, it is just preseason. The important part is making sure everybody is healthy for when the games count on Dec. 23 against the Washington Wizards.
“It’s still the same.],” the veteran coach finished. “At the end of the day, as someone told me 100 years ago, the number one ability is availability. So we need everybody to be available for the real games.” [lawrence-related id=40150,40144,40141]