The Philadelphia 76ers were cruising in the Windy City. They were up large in the fourth quarter by 20 points on a shorthanded Chicago Bulls team and coach Doc Rivers had his starters resting in the fourth quarter. It was a perfect scenario for them after having to go to overtime on Sunday.
However, the bench allowed Chicago to go on a 21-5 run and cut the deficit to one. Rivers called timeout and he had to insert his starters back into the game in order to avoid the collapse and come away with a 106-94 win over the Bulls.
“I wasn’t happy,” said coach Doc Rivers. “That’s two nights in a row that our bench has come in and kind of given up leads. It’s something we can fix. They just didn’t play well, to be honest. I thought as bad as they were defensively, I thought it was on offense where they didn’t have a lot of movement so we’ll be able to fix that.”
As soon as the starters reentered the game, order was restored. Tobias Harris was able to close it out with six points in the quarter and they also received five points from Ben Simmons and Seth Curry was big as well.
“Sometimes that happens,” said Harris. “We would love to get the blowout victory, but nonetheless, it was an opportunity for us to come back out and lock in, get stops, and execute offensively.”
They were able to accomplish both of those things as they held Chicago to just seven points over the final 7:01 of the game. They were able to regroup and be sure they walked out of Chicago with a win.
“There’s positives to take from the game,” added Harris. “I thought we did a good job in the fourth quarter last four or five minutes of locking in defensively, getting stops, and then getting to our spots offensively on the floor, and pushing the pace. That was big for us and we got to continue to do that because as we know when we get into the playoffs, there’s going to be tight games that we have to execute on both sides.”
It is good for Philadelphia to have these types of games after winning so easily as of late. Being able to be in clutch situations and be able to get the job done down the stretch is huge for them.
“It’s always good to get reps,” said Curry. “You don’t want to have setbacks like we did tonight, but it’s always good to get reps towards the end of the game just to figure out some sets you want to run and just kind of like some good practice for us.”
The Sixers will now head back to Texas to take on the Houston Rockets on Wednesday to finish the 3-game trip.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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