The Philadelphia 76ers are heading into a tough afternoon game against a quality opponent in the Denver Nuggets severely shorthanded. The Sixers will be missing Seth Curry due to a positive coronavirus test plus plenty of others due to contact tracing and injuries, including star duo Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
The team is down to eight active players, but they will only have seven of them play due to coach Doc Rivers not wanting to play Mike Scott. The veteran out of Virginia is only really active to avoid postponement of the game.
That means the Sixers will be relying on a lot of young and inexperienced players. Guys such as Tyrese Maxey, Dakota Mathias, Paul Reed, and Isaiah Joe will receive a lot of minutes with teaching the youngsters the focus of Rivers in this game.
“I can tell you, for me, the first thing you do you coach them and think about the big picture,” said Rivers. ‘For me, some of these guys may help us later and so they’re gonna get a lot of time against a very quality opponent. It will be good for them and so that’s the way I have to look at, you know, Tyrese Maxey can get a ton of minutes and so he’s going to see what it’s like carrying a team in the NBA and what it’s like where the defense is now focusing in on you. There’s a lot of that, that you can learn and teach tonight so I will definitely be a teacher more than thinking about the score.”
It is asking a lot of Rivers and the Sixers to play this game under the current circumstances they find themselves in and Rivers does believe they should not be playing in this game and he has a point.
“I don’t think we should, but it’s not for me to express that,” Rivers stated.
I do worry about our player health.”
The Sixers will be playing a lot of young guys who have not yet played 150 minutes in their NBA career. Now, Rivers is going to be asking them to play somewhere between 35-40 minutes in order to play the game.
“We’re gonna play players tonight that haven’t played a lot of minutes,” Rivers continued. “When you get seven bodies and someone’s gonna have like 40, plus minutes, that’s not just for today, that’s long term health. With the accumulation of games, it’s numbers we want to stay away from with our players. I’m actually more concerned about that than I am actually about COVID, and I am concerned about COVID. I think everybody is, the league is, and everyone else is as well. It’s a lot of stuff going on.”
On top of the fact that they don’t have a lot of players available, they will also be playing tired. They were stuck in New York after Thursday’s game and they did not get back to Philadelphia until the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. This will not be an easy game under these circumstances.
“The last 36 hours have been nuts, as you would expect,” the coach finished. “Held up, obviously, in New York, doing multiple tests, wait for tests, contact tracing, then getting the list of guys being out, and getting back to Philly at one in the morning, getting to your house, then trying to think not knowing if you’re playing or not. On the phone with your coaches and stuff up until four in the morning. Still not knowing, we’re just trying to create some kind of game plan and then coming here. Then an hour ago, we were told we were playing.”
The Sixers and the Nuggets tipoff at 3:00 p.m. EST from the Wells Fargo Center.
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