In a regular year, an NBA team very rarely has any time to get together and practice over the course of a season. In a shortened season due to the global pandemic, it makes it even tougher to be able to get together and practice.
The Philadelphia 76ers had that opportunity on Tuesday as they got together on their road trip and got a good practice session in. Despite being at the top of the East at 15-6, the Sixers still have a lot of work to do and coach Doc Rivers knows it.
“We’re not where we need to be, or where we want to be is maybe a better thing,” said Rivers. “If this is the best we are, it’s not good enough and that’s what I tell our guys every night. We got to keep getting better. We got to keep growing.”
The Sixers are obviously a talented team led by stars Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid as well as a good set of supporting players such as Tobias Harris, Seth Curry, Danny Green, and others. They all need to work on things on the floor and the coaching staff has to get better as well.
“We got to keep adding stuff on both ends offensively and defensively,” the coach stated. “As a staff, we have to figure out even better than rotation so we have a long way to go. Which is great because we’re winning, and getting better. That’s what you want.”
They have also been hit by a lot of injuries and that has hindered their ability to really come together as a team and build any chemistry.
“We’re like a quarter way into the season and guys being in and out, a lot of injuries, a lot of missed games, and you don’t have a lot of practices,” said Curry. “You have to use the games as practice time to get used to each other to get used to your teammates, to get used to the offense and defense. It’s always good to learn and get better, but win a lot of games in the process. So that’s our goal. Especially these last couple of months heading into the All-Star break.”
To Curry’s point, there have been plenty of times where they have not been on the same page and practice helps with that. That is what they went over on Tuesday.
“Execution, doing the little things, explaining,” Rivers added. “I think we have a grasp of the plays, like what they are, but we have no idea what we’re trying to get out of it yet or what we’re doing out of it. We’re just running it and today, we grabbed a couple of offensive plays, and we went piece by piece to show them the first option, second option, what you’re looking for, how you should come over to timing.”
Then, there is the defensive end. Philadelphia started the season with the league’s best defensive rating after the first couple of weeks, but they have since dropped off a bit to fourth. The fourth-best defensive rating is still very good, but they still have to make the necessary improvements on that end as well.
“Then the same thing defensively,” Rivers added. “When to call ice, when to call a drop, when to know the difference. That’s what we are right now. We know our defensive coverages as well, we just don’t know when to call them, and communication is the whole key. You call it late, it’s too late now. It was good practice, a lot of good spirits today, and we did a lot of good things today.”
Rivers had to go over communication and execution so much that he did not even have a chance to run Simmons at the center position like he and assistant Dave Joerger wanted to in practice.
“As the head coach, you just got to pick, what’s important,” he finished. “That was at the bottom, even though it’s very important for us because we’re gonna need it. I just think right now, we need other things to work on. We did a little bit of it, I will say that, but we didn’t do enough of it to make any difference.”
The Sixers take on the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday to finish a 3-game road trip.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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