PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers officially reached the halfway point of the 2022-23 season when they fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder at home on Thursday. The Sixers are sitting at 25-16 and are the No. 5 seed with 41 games to go before the playoffs begin in April.
On paper, this isn’t where many thought the Sixers would be at this point in the season. This team is built to win a championship now and it’s rare that a No. 5 seed makes a run to the finals.
With that being said, there is still a lot of basketball left to be played and the Sixers have had to battle through a ton of adversity. James Harden missed a month and Tyrese Maxey missed about six weeks due to injuries while Joel Embiid has also missed his share of games due to his own injuries, yet Philadelphia has been able to persevere and find a way to win games.
“If someone told you you’d miss all these games and you’d have the record you’d have, you’d say ‘I’m on that. I’m taking that’, but that just means we have a good record,” said coach Doc Rivers. “That’s not what we’re in this for. We’re in this to keep getting better and be ready for the playoffs, and be healthy, hopefully, for the playoffs. That’s key for us as well.”
While Rivers and the Sixers are happy with where they are at the halfway point of the season, there are still some issues that need to be ironed out. Especially, on the defensive end where they have been lit up by opposing guards as of late.
“That’s everywhere,” said Rivers. “It just is. I think you can go to 30 coaches and they’ll tell you the same thing. Our work never stops. We look at both ends of the floor, we’ve made defensive runs during the season where we’ve been great, and then we’ve had runs where we’ve struggled.”
The Sixers have only had their regular starting lineup for eight games to begin the season. The lineup of Harden, Maxey, Tobias Harris, PJ Tucker, and Embiid has been an efficient lineup offensively, but there have been stretches where they have struggled on that end as well on top of the defensive issues.
“We’ve had stretches offensively where we’ve looked great so we just want to keep improving and getting better,” Rivers finished. “The more minutes our guys can play together, the more things we can see.”
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