The Philadelphia 76ers were looking for a bounce-back effort on Friday when they paid a visit to the Atlanta Hawks, but did so without their top six players. The Sixers had nothing to play for so they rested their main players to prepare for the playoffs.
Most expected a loss. Instead, the role players stepped up, rallying from a deficit as large as a 15 points to beat the Hawks, 136-131, in overtime.
Jalen McDaniels had 24 points and 11 rebounds. Georges Niang had 24 points, and Danuel House Jr. added 22. Jaden Springer had 19 points and made some really huge plays in the fourth quarter to force the extra session. Montrezl Harrell had a double-double off the bench, and Mac McClung made his Sixers debut. Philadelphia needed everyone’s contributions.
“Good win,” coach Doc Rivers told reporters. “Everybody. Jalen McDaniels was phenomenal. Paul Reed played well, Trez’s minutes when he came in was unbelievable. Everybody that came off the bench was good. Furk (Korkmaz) had had a good stretch. McClung. I mean everybody did something for our team, and that’s what you have to be when you’re short-handed like that.”
After a blowout loss in the home finale to the Miami Heat, one assumed it would be more of the same on Friday with the Hawks. Instead, McDaniels, Springer, Niang and House Jr. dug deep Sixers.
“I wanted to win this game,” Rivers added. “I just thought it’d be good for our guys. I told our coaches I said, I don’t know if we can win this game or not, but this is an important game for our role players to come out and kind of prove that they’re good basketball players and start feeling good.”
Also, when considering the Hawks still had play-in positioning to play for while the Sixers had nothing to play for, and Philadelphia still came out on top is a great sign for this group. Rivers will take more performances such as this one
“Going into the playoffs, wins like this, when you have your top, what, seven guys out? It’s huge for you,” the coach finished. “Nothing with Atlanta. It was just like I just thought, good performance, number one, but let’s try to win the game so I was into this. This was just a lot of fun.”
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