1:51 p.m. ET
Tim Bontemps ESPN
CAMDEN, NJ — The Philadelphia 76ers practiced here Wednesday morning before returning to Toronto on Thursday night for Game 6 of their Eastern Conference first round playoff series against the Raptors, midway to an unprecedented collapse after a 3-0 lead in this best-of-seven series.
76ers coach Doc Rivers is the only coach to have endured more than one loss after leading 3-1 – something that has happened to him three times in his career. But when asked about that playoff story Wednesday, Rivers said it was necessary to go back and check the record.
“Well, it’s easy to use me as an example,” Rivers said after the team finished practice. “But I wish you would tell the whole story with me. In order?
1 relatives
“My Orlando team [in 2003] was the eighth seed. No one gives me credit for standing up to them [Detroit] Pistons, who won the title. That was an eighth seed. I want you to go back and look at the list. I urge you to go back and look at this list. And you’d say, ‘What a damn good coaching job.’ For real.
“I mean, the Clipper team [in 2015] that we lost 1-3, Chris Paul didn’t play the first two games and played on one leg and we didn’t have a home game. And then the last [when the Clippers lost to the Denver Nuggets in 2020], to me is the one we screwed up. This is the one I took. We messed that up. And that was in the bubble. And anything can happen in the bubble. There is no home court. Game 7 would have been in LA.
“But it just happens. So I would say to myself, some of them are … I always have to do better. I always take my own responsibility. And then part of it happens. circumstances happen. This one, let’s win this, and we don’t have to talk about it.”
In 2003, Rivers and the Orlando Magic — led by future Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady, who won the scoring title that season — took that 3-1 lead against the top-seeded Pistons. It was the first season the NBA returned to a best-of-seven first-round series. McGrady famously said – who never made it out of the first round of the playoffs until the end of his San Antonio career – after winning Game 4 to take that 3-1 lead, “It feels good to be in the second round to come.”
Detroit promptly won the next three games by a total of 61 points to actually advance to the second round and then eventually lost to the New Jersey Nets in the Eastern Conference Finals before winning an NBA title the next season.
In 2015, Rivers took that 3-1 lead over current 76ers star point guard James Harden and basketball operations president Daryl Morey, both then with the Houston Rockets, only to concede the last three games of that series to lose. That included a stunning home meltdown in Game 6 as Houston edged the Clippers 40-15 (mostly while Harden watched from the bench) to turn a 13-point deficit early in the quarter into a 12-point win close. before completing the series in Game 7.
However, as Rivers said, the loss is the most memorable in 2020. The Clippers – led by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, who they acquired last summer and voted by many to win the championship – went 3-1 up against the Nuggets only to double-digit leads in each of the latter three games in the series is sent home from the NBA’s bubble at Walt Disney World Resort outside of Orlando, Florida in truly shocking fashion.
For now, however, the ’76ers are just trying not to further complete their already rough story. Just last year, the 76ers gambled away a 26-point lead with the Atlanta Hawks in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals series — before losing again on their home court in Game 7, the game in which Ben Simmons missed an open dunk late in the game fourth quarter, he began his journey to leave Philadelphia for good.
So far this series, the 76ers have beaten Toronto in the first two games, clinched an overtime win in Game 3 behind Joel Embiid’s exploits, and then watched the Raptors more or less control Games 4 and 5. Rivers said it can be difficult for one team to eliminate another team, but after the series’ mess, both teams know what they need to do to win Game 6.
“With 3-0 up, especially 3-0, I would say that [teams feel differently]’ Rivers said. “A lot of teams don’t win these games. The Celtics are the only ones to have won this game [in the first round of this year’s playoffs]. Everyone else lost this game.
“From a coaching perspective, you hate it because you feel like, ‘Let’s just take care of it.’ Then you come to Game 5 the other night and they played better. We didn’t play well. We didn’t play with any sense of urgency. So right now I think both teams got some kind of notice and both teams have the attention of the other team.
“If you don’t have that, then we’re all in trouble.”
When asked what it would take to change things up in Game 6, Rivers pointed to the pace the 76ers played in the first two games — particularly offensively — and said Philadelphia needed to get back to that, if it wants to shut out Toronto and avoid returning for a do-or-die Game 7 on Saturday night.
“Well, I still think the number 1 is 63% of the time we went wide in the last game,” Rivers said. “So that means 37% of the time you’re just bringing the ball up after a shot or a free throw or something like that. So it definitely has to be better.
“We need to get more stops because they don’t run … they run when they can, but when they don’t they use the clock to 22 seconds. So then the game is a slow game and a So the two things: #1 we need to get more stops, #2 if we get stops and even score we need to play at a better pace. We’re walking the ball up the court.”