PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers picked up an easy win over the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday for their sixth straight win. They led by as many as 21 and stepped up when the time called for it.
They also received some big performances from the bench unit. Montrezl Harrell had 10 points, and Georges Niang had 11. Shake Milton added nine points, five rebounds and five assists. Danuel House Jr. had nine points, and Matisse Thybulle had six points and two steals.
“They have a good chemistry together,” coach Doc Rivers said of the bench unit. “They’re starting to read each other really well. One of the things I think they do a great job of when the play breaks down is they find Trez. They just throw it to him anywhere and we go dribble handoff and we get scoring out of that. That’s actually becoming part of the offense for them. It almost seems at times they want to go to that, which is not a bad thing to do.”
The bench unit helped in the win against the Toronto Raptors on Monday as well. This has been a strong homestand for them.
“They’ve been great,” said Joel Embiid. “Last game, they came in against Toronto and they gave us a big lead. Tonight, they did an excellent job. They need to keep it going.”
The play of the bench unit, and the starters as well, allowed the Sixers to pull their starters late in the fourth quarter — something Philadelphia wants to do more often.
“We want to get to the point in fourth quarters where we know we have the game,” said Tobias Harris. “Obviously, we’re going to play great teams that that’s not going to be the case. They’re going to be hard-fought games, but, for us as a group, we know the teams that we should go out and have a lead, maintain a lead, and be able to have the comfort in the fourth quarter to get guys less minutes and have guys that come off the bench play more minutes is good for us.”
For Philadelphia, its focus is winning. If it can continue to get these types of performances from the bench, the better the results will be.
“Every guy in here is tied in with the one goal that we have and that’s winning,” said Harrell. “Everybody else benefits when you win, really. That’s how we’re looking at it. We’re not looking to come in and guys worry about what they have or individual accolades or anything like that. Everybody’s in here to try to get the one main goal and that’s to try to get to the Eastern finals, win that, and try to get to the finals.”
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