PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers are 50-26 as they push to the playoffs. They have six games left, including one game each with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics.
However, the focus for coach Doc Rivers and his staff is preparing the team for the games that matter most.
Considering their two top players, Joel Embiid and James Harden, are nursing injuries, it would make sense for the Sixers to rest those two guys with so much at stake come playoff time.
However, they also have to be sure that they’re in rhythm to get going again easily in the first round. That is where the balance of playing games vs. resting comes in for Rivers.
“I’m not worried about rest as much anymore, honestly,” said Rivers. “Because we have a week now with the play-in. That’s the one great thing about the play-in. You do get a little bit of time to practice and rest, so we are probably focused way more on conditioning than we are rest.”
The coach is right about the play-in tournament. The regular season ends on April 9, but the playoffs will not start until April 15 due to the play-in tournament April 11-14. That gives the Sixers time to practice and rest ahead of what they hope will be a deep postseason run.
The one player Rivers might want to rest is De’Anthony Melton. The do-it-all guard has played a career-high 2,055 minutes thus far. His previous career-high in minutes was 1,657, so he is way past that number.
“There may be a guy, I’ll use one for you, Melt,” Rivers added. “That we would consider resting than more conditioning. He’s in great shape, but he’s played a ton of minutes, and he’s really not been 100% all year so he would be a guy that you would balance that. No one else, really.”
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