With the Philadelphia 76ers trailing the Denver Nuggets by 20 in the fourth quarter, coach Doc Rivers waved the white flag. He emptied the bench with 5:47 left as he inserted young Jaden Springer into the game along with Furkan Korkmaz and Montrezl Harrell.
At that point, it appeared as if the game was over. It would be elementary from there and the Nuggets would cruise to the win.
Instead, those three along with Jalen McDaniels and a combination of Shake Milton and Danuel House Jr. allowed the Sixers to climb all the way back to within 114-111 with 28.9 seconds left.
Then, McDaniels fouled Jeff Green on a controversial call as it appeared that Green stepped out of bounds before the foul. Coach Doc Rivers challenged the call, but because the officials could only review the foul, they could not overturn it with the out-of-bounds call as Denver held on to win it 116-111.
“It was awesome,” Rivers told reporters after the loss. “It was great. They all played hard, they switched, they attacked. Defensively, they got their hands on things. They were just very active.”
In the spirit of March, Rivers compared the late rally to what is seen regularly in the NCAA Tournament. Upsets are pulled off when a team gains momentum and because they have nothing to lose, they will continue to play hard and the favorite will lose its edge a bit. That clearly is what happened to the Nuggets as they were just waiting for time to expire.
“It’s like the NCAA Tournament,” Rivers smiled. “When you’re the underdog, all of a sudden, the other team’s like ‘oh goodness’, you know, and they can feel it. That made our guys feel good.”
At the end of the day, it does count as a loss. While Philadelphia can find positives, it is a loss and they are now on a three-game skid. The hope for the Sixers now is that Joel Embiid and James Harden will be ready to go when the team returns home on Wednesday to host the Dallas Mavericks.
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