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The Philadelphia 76ers are a talented team on the roster. Normally, when the starters are having a rough night, the team can turn to the bench to look for me and ensure good production on the ground.
However, that hasn’t been the case recently and was a big factor in their 120-111 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Saturday afternoon on the road.
The Suns bench racked up 49 points in the win while the Sixers had just 20 points. Tyrese Maxey had six points and Matisse Thybulle had five off the bench as the main scorer, but Furkan Korkmaz had just two points on shooting 0 for 5 and he was a minus-13 while also struggling in defense.
“At the end of the day, we have to do better,” said coach Doc Rivers. “The bench hasn’t been bad this year, but they’ve been bad lately. I’m probably coming back about five games in my opinion. It’s a long season.
The basketball season is long and the guys are going to be up and down. It is, but guys like Korkmaz, Maxey and Dwight Howard have to contribute more. It doesn’t help that Shake Milton is out now and at least Mike Scott is back, but they’ll have to bounce back.
“I never overreact a few games, but you still have to be better offensively,” added Rivers. It will help your defense a bit, but if you want to be bad offensively you have to be great defensively, and right now this group has been bad on both. This is something we have to resolve.
The bench struggled not only offensively, but also on the defensive end. Rivers even put Joel Embiid in there with the bench unit to try and get them started, but it just wasn’t going well for that unit.
“Joel started the fourth quarter, with the bench,” finished the coach. “It’s no longer a question of handling the ball. We were able to score more, but a team has just shot 61% against us. So honestly, offense is the last thing I think about right now. An average team shouldn’t shoot 61%. It’s a good team, they shouldn’t be close. We need to be better defensively first, and then we will correct the movement of the ball.
The Sixers now face the Utah Jazz on Monday to complete the 4-game road swing.
This post originally appeared on Sixers wire! follow us on Facebook!
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