The Philadelphia 76ers were locked in a tight battle with the Brooklyn Nets at home on Friday with a chance to make a statement in the East despite still not having Ben Simmons on the floor. They held a 10-point lead with 5:33 left, but they saw it slip away in a 114-109 loss.
There were two questionable calls late in the fourth quarter that swung in Brooklyn’s way. One was an out-of-bounds call that looked like it went off of Kevin Durant’s leg that was called in the way of the Nets and then with Philadelphia up two late, Danny Green was called for a block when it looked like it could have been a charge on Durant.
Coach Doc Rivers decided not to challenge either call and the Sixers were not able to recover.
“We have a guy behind our bench that looks at them,” said Rivers. “He had his thumbs down on all of them.”
Maybe so, but at that point, Rivers should have overruled him and challenged the calls. They both looked like they could have been changed in favor of Philadelphia.
Then, when the Sixers were struggling offensively, Green threw up a couple of good looks, but he air-balled both of them. Neither shot looked particularly close either, but Rivers expressed confidence in his veteran guard.
“I just thought they were air-balls,” said Rivers. “The good news with Danny is, I’ll guarantee if he gets one next game, he’ll shoot it. That’s what he does. He’s just gotta keep shooting them. You live with them when they go in, you live with them when they don’t.”
Green is a proven shooter who has come through plenty of times in his career. A couple of bad shots is not going to change the mind of Rivers at all when it comes to his confidence in Green down the stretch of games.
“They were good shots,” he added. “The second one, in particular, that Tobias threw him, you can’t get better shots. Even that was a broken play. We started it with a guy on the wrong side of the floor, we end up getting a great shot out of it, but it was not the right way to run the play.”
Philadelphia will have to move on to the next one as they get set to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road on Sunday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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