The Philadelphia 76ers won a lot of games under former coach Doc Rivers. In three seasons in the City of Brotherly Love, Rivers garnered a record of 154-82 and led the Sixers to the No. 1 seed in the 2020-21 season.
Unfortunately, the Sixers were bounced in the semifinals in all three of his seasons and that led to his dismissal. Philadelphia was just unable to get over the hump in the Eastern Conference as it has not reached the conference finals since the 2000-01 season when Allen Iverson led the way.
Rivers, now the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, hopped on “The BS Podcast” with The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and discussed home-court advantage. He admitted it was tough for him to win games in Philadelphia:
Usually, you play better at home. The only place that I thought it was difficult to play at home is in Philly, because of the crowd. I thought it affected our players some.
The Sixers went 29-7 at home in 2020-21, 24-17 in the 2021-22 season, and 29-12 in the 2022-23 season all under Rivers. Philadelphia was 31-4 at home in the 2019-20 season in the final year under coach Brett Brown.
Maybe Rivers has a point about the passionate Philadelphia fan base, but the Sixers have historically been a great home team. It is a bit interesting to see him reveal these comments now.
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