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The Philadelphia 76ers had to dig deep and rally from a 17 point deficit in order to beat the New York Knicks at home on Wednesday night, but it was a win that showed off the team’s depth. As much praise as Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and the starters receive, it was their bench that provided a huge spark to come back and win on Wednesday.
Mike Scott had 12 points on his four triples in the second-half rally, James Ennis III had 11 points and also made some big plays in the win, and Trey Burke was a big help as well.
That did not go unnoticed despite Simmons’ big game, coach Brett Brown stated on his bench:
We were searching for sure. We had a hard time guarding them. They were making shots and you’re looking down the bench and we tried Furk(Korkmaz) and we tried Shake(Milton), Matisse(Thybulle) we’re trying to grow and we ended up leaning on Trey Burke as a 2. Somebody who could do some stuff off a live ball and I thought his intensity changed the speed, the energy in the gym, and I ended up going with Mike a little bit more than Al(Horford) down the stretch. I played Ben more than I normally would want to, but we were searching for awhile.
It does not mean it was all sunshine and rainbows off the bench. Brown was frustrated with how the Sixers had to rally from down 17 and his search for answers in order to win as he added:
We searched. I kept searching trying to find something. We tried Furk, I went away from him, I tried Shake, I went away from him, I thought James Ennis came in and played well and hit some big shots when we needed it. Then you end up going to a scoring point guard like Trey is and treating him like AI(Iverson) letting him run off the ball and looping him up and giving him the ball and putting him in pick-and-rolls and I thought he was really good. The iterations to get to that were frustrating.
At the end of the day, Philadelphia received 45 big points off their bench and it really helped key the win on Wednesday. It will have to continue as the team itself tries to figure things out on the fly. Any contributions from the role players are help at this moment in time. [lawrence-related id=19717,19708,19690]