PHILADELPHIA–The schedule has been tough for the Philadelphia 76ers. As they continue to try and find continuity, they have had a tough time with the schedule as well.
On Monday, they had to return home to face the Denver Nuggets and reigning league MVP Nikola Jokic after they were just in overtime with the Orlando Magic on Sunday. Less than 24 hours after that one, the Sixers had to go to battle with the Nuggets and they ended up falling to Denver 114-110.
Joel Embiid was fighting fatigue all night long as he had to play over 41 minutes on Sunday and he ended up playing another 36 on Monday.
“I thought the rotations got screwed up today because Joel after four minutes said he wanted to come out, he was tired,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Then he got in foul trouble after that so that really hurt our rotations tonight.”
Embiid has made it a point to play in most games in order to give his team a chance every night. So even though he was feeling pretty tired, he also wanted to be sure he was out there for his team. He was not going to miss this game.
“There was no chance,” said Embiid. “I listen to them. I listen to whatever they tell me and I make the decision. It could’ve been, but it’s a tough game. We gotta measure ourselves against these types of opponents. We gotta play against tough teams and figure out where we really are.”
However, it is still tough to play high-level basketball against a very good Nuggets team after going for over 41 minutes the night before.
“It was tough,” he admitted. “Obviously, I played more than 40 minutes last night. I think this year, I really only missed two games other than those games because of COVID. I’m starting to feel it, but I gotta keep pushing. There’s 15 more games, I think, so we got 15 more games in between that and practices to find ways how to get better so there’s really no time to really rest. We gotta figure out what’s gonna help us win.”
It was not just Embiid who was fighting fatigue, the whole Sixers team looked like they were fighting it. Philadelphia shot only 40% after halftime compared to 66.7% for Denver and Georges Niang shot 2-for-10 from deep off the bench including missing the game-tying shot off the side of the backboard.
“The only guy I struggled keeping in tonight was Georges,” Rivers finished. “I said it early, I said ‘Man, Georges legs, I think he’s dead’, but then he’ll make one. He made but a couple, but they’re scared to leave them, it opens the floor up for us.
Even though they were open shots, I’m telling you, we could’ve gotten even better shots. I just thought we took the first available shot tonight. I thought we were very impatient after the first 12 minutes of the game.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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