The Philadelphia 76ers have had their issues with the Cleveland Cavaliers all season as they dropped the first two matchups with them earlier in the season. They had a chance to get some revenge on the Cavs while also ending the road trip on a positive note.
The Sixers were able to do that as they walked out of Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse with a 114-94 win to finish up the road trip at 4-2 without Joel Embiid. A big reason why they were able to get it done is due to the fact that they were able to get 65 points out of their bench.
“They were great, just overall,” said coach Doc Rivers. “When you look at just the plus-minus numbers for them, it was unbelievable. Even at halftime, they were all pluses. I thought defensively, what did we have eight deflections the way we counted them at halftime? We had 31 in the second half alone. What I liked about the bench is offensively, they were organized. That was really good, great to see.”
(function (d, s, n) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
js = d.createElement(s);
js.className = n;
js.src = “//player.ex.co/player/d8b9c085-4226-44f1-8495-36ad4e2aa62d”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘exco-player’));
The biggest source of offense off their bench was Shake Milton who poured in 27 points. When he has it going like that on the offensive end, he is really tough to stop for anybody.
“What I told him at halftime was, we were having the perfect game,” said Rivers. “We only had one turnover, they had no offensive rebounds for points, we basically took them out of transition, they didn’t have any points in the paint, I said the only problem is we’re missing wide-open shots. I said I’m good with that, we all do enough work with our shots, so if you have them in the second half, keep shooting them. That’s all we told them at halftime and in the second half, they started going in for us.”
Milton responded by knocking down five of his seven attempts from deep and it was an overall good night for himself and the bench. The 3-point shot has been something of a struggle for Milton this season, but he was able to bust out a bit on Thursday.
“It’s just reps and the ball going in,” explained Milton. “It’s been hard this season just with how many games we’re playing and everything. It’s like we’re constantly playing games, but just continuing to put in the work and trust it.”
The second unit providing a huge chunk of the offense was huge on a night where Tobias Harris got into foul trouble early and Ben Simmons and Mike Scott struggled with their shot on that end of the floor.
“I was extremely proud,” said Harris. “I think them just coming in there and imposing their will defensively, and being scrappy. Just having that energy, I thought the third quarter, as a whole we came out with some great energy, get out, get a lead, and then to have the bench come in and sustain the lead and push it up even further was huge for us.”
Either way, it was a win the team really needed to end a long road trip. The young guard out of SMU stepped up and he made the right plays when the team needed him the most.
“Our young guards stepped up and play big tonight,” said Dwight Howard. “Tobias, he got in foul trouble early, and everybody stepped up after that and made some big plays hit some big shots. Shake, it was unbelievable from the beginning of the game. Tonight was a good game for all of us.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f1jxkahtwnvzepyp image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[lawrence-related id=44214,44211,44188]