The Philadelphia 76ers entered another game where they were severely shorthanded due to the league’s health and safety protocols keeping guys like Tobias Harris, Shake Milton, and Matisse Thybulle out right now due to contact tracing. This came after a positive test to Seth Curry and the Sixers have been trying to win with young players.
They had Joel Embiid and Mike Scott return to the lineup on Monday, but it wasn’t enough as they fell to the Atlanta Hawks 112-94 on an overall rough night on the road. This came after they fell to the Denver Nuggets on Saturday where they didn’t even have Embiid and Scott in that game.
It’s unfortunate because the Sixers are in a tough stretch right now in the schedule where they are playing plenty of games in a short amount of time, but the Sixers did not want to hear any of that.
“Denver didn’t sit anybody the other night and Atlanta, other than they have a couple of injuries as well, but they’re playing their starters for the most part,” said coach Doc Rivers. “All of our starters are out and no one’s gonna feel sorry for us. We got to try to win these games.”
Rookie Tyrese Maxey received another start and had 15 points and six rebounds following up his 39 points he scored against Denver. He also echoed Rivers’ statement.
“We can’t make excuses,” Maxey added. “It’s the NBA, stuff happens. I talked about it last game, you have to go through adversity and Coach Doc said something that’s gonna stick with us. No one feels sorry for us. You think the Hawks or the Nuggets feel bad? No one feels sorry. We’ve got to figure out a way to try to win some of these games while we’re down.”
It is unfortunate given the situation right now, but the Sixers have to regroup and keep pushing forward. They have to be able to find a way to win these games starting with the Miami Heat at home on Tuesday.
“We’re in a tough spot with COVID,” Rivers added. “Not a lot we can do with it. I have a sneaking feeling that there’s gonna be a lot of teams with this problem. Right now, we’re getting hit with it, which is unfortunate for us and, unfortunately, it happened when we have four games in five days. It’s like the timing of this couldn’t be any worse at all.”
The Sixers will hope to have Ben Simmons back in the lineup for reinforcements.
https://embed.sendtonews.com/oembed/?SC=ymwToU9jHg-1104898-7498&autoplay=on&V=2&format=json
[lawrence-related id=41206,41203,41197]