There is no question that the Philadelphia 76ers have one of the best starting lineups in the league. Led by a superstar duo in the form of Joel Embiid and James Harden and flanked by a rising star in Tyrese Maxey and do-it-all forward in Tobias Harris make it a dangerous group.
It is when coach Doc Rivers turns to the bench when things get a little worrisome for the Sixers in terms of maintaining leads and giving the starting lineup a boost.
The Sixers rank 27th in the league in bench scoring at 27.0 points per game and the group as a whole has been up and down. There have been times where Georges Niang has been brilliant–more often than not–but he has had a rough couple of games as he is 3-for-14 from deep over the previous two games.
Sometimes the bench does more in terms of things one doesn’t see in a box score, but Rivers wants to see more.
“We still have to get them better,” he explained. “They do have to score more. We’re gonna have to find the right group to have a bigger contribution from our bench and listen, we’re all crunching the numbers and looking at everybody, but we got to find the right group to be able to make a run.”
Outside of Niang, the Sixers have most played some combination of Shake Milton with Furkan Korkmaz, Isaiah Joe, Danny Green, and DeAndre Jordan. Milton and Korkmaz are both having down years and their minutes have been inconsistent and Green has been dealing with a variety of injuries.
Milton played three minutes and Joe played four minutes in Wednesday’s win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“A lot of players,” said Rivers. “I’m not gonna get in there who’s not playing each night they don’t play. We got Shake. You could have asked about Furk. You could have asked about Isaiah. They’re all not gonna play and so they’re all fighting for minutes and that’s it, but I’m not going to do the who doesn’t play that night thing. They all need to do it. Play well. Just play well. Play consistent, play well, play on both ends of the floor, but that’s all of them. None of them have earned guaranteed minutes every night. ”
Rivers has been known to show faith in different pieces of his bench. There was the time in the playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks when he threw Milton in there randomly in Game 2 and he gave a huge lift to the team to get it done so he is not concerned with who he has to play in order to get production.
“I don’t know why that’s a thing,” Rivers added. “You look at Golden State, they put in different guys every other night. It’s not a thing there. I don’t understand why it’s a thing here. It’s gonna be different guys and nobody in the locker room is complaining about it. They understand that. They want to do whatever they can do to help the team win and that’s the way we’re gonna do it.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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