The Philadelphia 76ers had to certainly improvise on Tuesday when they took on the Milwaukee Bucks on the back half of a back-to-back. They were down a majority of their main guys and the Sixers needed to do something in order to get things moving in the right direction.
Coach Doc Rivers made an interesting move to start as he had Paul Reed start in place of Danny Green. The veteran guard came off the bench and he had nine points in 28:38 of playing time in a surprising move in the home loss to the Bucks.
Green is a guy who is an important piece of the starting lineup so it is curious as to why Rivers benched him.
“Minutes,” said Rivers. “We went over the number by eight minutes. Danny kept saying he was good.”
It also did not help that the Sixers lost Seth Curry shortly before tipoff due to a left foot contusion. That made things even tougher for Rivers and the Sixers and that forced him to shorten his rotation a bit. Philadelphia essentially only played seven guys after Rivers said he would play 10 games in this one after the loss to the New York Knicks on Monday.
“We just decided not to,” Rivers explained. “We stayed away from it. I thought out guys were alright. They were fresh enough. Furk (Korkmaz), I thought we needed to get him rest. He shot 2-for-18, 44 minutes is too much. Losing Seth right before the game was not in the game plan, obviously, but that happens in NBA games. It just does. You get late scratches and you gotta adjust.”
As far as Curry is concerned, Rivers is not sure when he will be able to return. It was a little sudden for them.
“I don’t know,” the coach finished. “I literally kinda thought he was gonna play and then late, you could hear the language, it didn’t sound like he was gonna play. So we start adjusting pretty quickly after that. I’m not even sure what it is. I think it’s his toe, but I’m not sure.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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