The Philadelphia 76ers are a team that has talent up and down the roster. Normally, when the starters have a rough night, the team can turn to the bench as a pick me up and provide good production on the floor.
However, that has not been the case recently and that was a big factor in their 120-111 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Saturday afternoon on the road.
The Suns bench poured in 49 points in the win while the Sixers only had 20 points. Tyrese Maxey had six points and Matisse Thybulle had five off the bench as the main scorers, but Furkan Korkmaz only had two points on 0-for-5 shooting and he was a minus-13 while struggling on defense as well.
“Bottom line is we got to do better,” said coach Doc Rivers. “The bench hasn’t been bad this year, but they’ve been bad lately. Probably going back about five games in my opinion. It’s a long season.”
The basketball season is a long one and guys are going to be up and down. It is what it is, but guys like Korkmaz, Maxey, and Dwight Howard have to contribute more. It does not help that Shake Milton is now out and at least Mike Scott has returned, but they will have to bounce back.
“I don’t ever overreact to a couple of games but you still have to be better offensively,” Rivers added. “That will help your defense a little bit, but if you’re going to be bad offensively, you got to be great defensively, and right now that group has been bad on both. That’s something we have to address.”
The bench struggled not only offensively, but they did on the defensive end as well. Rivers even put Joel Embiid in there with the bench unit to try and get them going, but it just was not going well for that unit.
“Joel started the fourth quarter, with the bench,” the coach finished. “It’s not a matter of ball-handling again. We got to score more, but a team just shot 61% against us. So honestly offense is the last thing I’m thinking about right now. An average team shouldn’t shot 61%. This is a good team, they shouldn’t be close. We got to be better defensively first and then we’ll fix the ball movement.”
The Sixers now have to take on the Utah Jazz on Monday to finish up the 4-game road swing.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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