Doc Rivers has chosen a hellish hill to die on

Doc Rivers has chosen a hellish hill to die on

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Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers made the decision to start veteran center DeAndre Jordan for Game 1 of his team’s second-round series against top-ranked Miami Heat. With Joel Embiid being deferred until Game 3 at the earliest, Rivers is in a pretty bad position: His most important player, but determined to keep a traditional center in his starting XI, Rivers have old man Jordan and young man Paul Reed at their disposal, two big boys who can do exactly zero basketball things, even half as well as the man they replace. Going against the Miami Heat with one of these guys on the starting lineup would be a daunting challenge.

Rivers left with 33-year-old Jordan, who only played 16 regular-season games with the 76ers after they signed him March 3 following his release from the Los Angeles Lakers, for whom he sucked mondo ace. Rivers said he and his coaches and “our boys” felt a “big roller” was the best option for Philadelphia’s offense. Reed and Jordan are both role players, but Rivers also felt it would be a big blow if Reed, who has averaged nearly seven fouls per 36 minutes during the regular season, found himself in trouble. It’s a valid concern given Reed committed five fouls in 13 minutes Monday night. When Embiid isn’t available and Reed can’t keep his feet on the ground, the decisions become very stupid very quickly. After Jordan, Georges Niang, who is Jimmy Butler’s height, or Paul Millsap, who is also Jimmy Butler’s height and has played even fewer games with the 76ers (nine), are the second tallest players on the roster. who is even older than Jordan and who is probably the most washed-out player not named Udonis Haslem in any NBA roster.

This isn’t meant as a defense of River’s decision to form Jordan, just to emphasize that the Sixers are in deep trouble without Embiid. Of course, Jordan can’t be the stopgap even for very short stretches because he’s no longer able to survive in any role on NBA soil. Per Cleaning The Glass, which filters out garbage-time performance, Jordan has been mostly negative during his minutes over the last five years of his career. Before he left the Clippers in 2018, he was already falling out in a big way. He was only intermittently useful for the Mavericks and Knicks, and his job with the Nets was basically a favor orchestrated by Brooklyn’s marquee players. He was disastrously poor in Los Angeles, and it was even worse during his limited regular-season run with the Sixers. The drop from Embiid to Jordan is pretty much the same as dropping from the roof of my house all the way across the planet and then on the other side, somewhere in China or Australia, which by the way is more or less the part of the globe where Jordan still credibly gets a paycheck could draw for playing basketball.

This won’t surprise anyone whose name isn’t Doc Rivers, but Jordan was terrifying on Monday night. That he’s a semi-viable pick-and-roll partner doesn’t even come close to making up for the problems posed by all that he can’t. He cannot shoot or finish anywhere outside of the restricted arc. He can only throw the most rudimentary passes, especially with so little experience on the Philadelphia offensive line. He can’t handle the ball on the ground. Those flaws in Jordan’s game have always been there, even when he was an All-NBA player, but the real problem at this late stage in his career is that he has nowhere to defend except right in front of the basket. The Heat are on the move, and virtually all of their key players are capable of exploiting a Jordan-sized imbalance in one way or another, whether it’s shooting an open three-pointer or blowing past a sluggish closeout or into a quick handover switch to maintain a scrambling defense stuck in the mixer. At no point will they allow Jordan to camp on the low block and easily parry shots around the perimeter.

The beginning of the first quarter was nightmarish. The Sixers were outscored by 12 points during Jordan’s four-minute run, with a 180 defensive rating. Rivers drew Jordan early and had the common sense to keep him on the bench for the rest of the half, and Philadelphia scraped back, taking a one-point Advance at halftime. Jordan had his only half-decent stretch of the game early in the second half, but soon the Heat pulled him back into the action, and he was again just a big, badass minus in the fourth quarter as the Heat took control of the game and then disappeared at the horizon.

So the experiment failed. Lesson learned! Clearly, an experienced head coach like Doc Rivers uses the information gained in Game 1 to make adjustments to his rotation ahead of Game 2. Obviously when your team is outperformed at odds of more than 70 points per 100 possessions If a certain guy is on the floor, stop using that guy, and certainly stop using him in instances where he’s most likely to be up against the opponent’s best players. Right?

Doc says “to a man” that the players in the Philadelphia locker room believe in Jordan, and that’s why he’s determined to lead Jordan in the starting lineup for Game 2 “whether you like it or not.” Maybe Doc should consider rephrasing the question. Instead of asking his players if they support their teammate, he should ask them what they think about opening Game 2 in a 10-point hole. It seems certain that he will get a very different answer.