PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers were once again on the wrong end of a huge night from 3-point range in Friday’s loss to the Chicago Bulls. For the second time in five games, the Sixers allowed somebody to knock down 11 triples in a game, this time to Zach LaVine who made 11 of his 13 triples.
On Dec. 30, in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, they allowed CJ McCollum to get loose for 11 triples of his own. The 11 3s made were a career-high and they were also a franchise record for the Pelicans.
Despite giving up 11 triples again to one player, coach Doc Rivers isn’t too concerned by it.
“No,” Rivers said bluntly. “The whole league is having career nights right now. Every night, someone has a career night. My guess is Zach LaVine won’t even be the high scorer tonight (Friday) in the league and that’s a shocking statement to make when you think about it.”
Rivers isn’t wrong when he says that the whole league has been going off. There have been an unusually high number of huge scoring nights recently so LaVine’s performance isn’t necessarily surprising, but it doesn’t make it OK on that end of the floor either.
“I mean, we’re not gonna be perfect, you know what I mean?” said De’Anthony Melton. “We’re gonna have games where guys get loose and stuff like that, but we’ve got to limit it and contain it. He made 11 3s or something like that. That’s unacceptable and we got to find a way to limit that. We can’t give up that many attempts to him.”
The point right now is that the Sixers have to be able to make adjustments in situations such as this one. They have to be able to get to the 3-point line and run guys off as they move forward on that end of the floor.
“I think what the league is doing is what everyone is doing,” Rivers added. “They feed the hot guy and they stay with him. They keep it in his hands more than the league has ever done that so you have to try and do something about it. We did and it backfired because everyone else started making shots.”
In this case, Rivers isn’t wrong. The Sixers began trapping LaVine and that allowed Partick Williams to get going as he shot 7-for-7 for 16 points in the third quarter.
Philadelphia will look to bounce back on Sunday when they take on the Detroit Pistons on the road to begin a home-and-home series.
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