13:51 ET
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Tim BontempsESPN
CAMDEN, New Jersey – The Philadelphia 76ers trained here Wednesday morning before returning to Toronto for Game 6 of their playoff series in the first round of the Eastern Conference against the Raptors on Thursday night, halfway to an unprecedented 3-0 lead. this best series of seven.
76ers coach Doc Rivers is the only coach to have more than one loss after leading 3-1 in the series – something that has happened to him three times in his career. But when Rivers was asked about the history of the playoffs on Wednesday, he said he needed to go back and check the record.
“Well, it’s easy to use me as an example,” Rivers said after the team finished training. “But I would like you all to tell me the whole story. Okay?
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“My team in Orlando [in 2003] was the eighth seed. No one is crediting me for resisting [Detroit] Pistons, who won the title. This was the eighth seed. I want you to come back and look at this list. I dare you to come back and look at this list. And you’d say, “What a hell of a coaching job.” Really.
“I mean the Clipper team [in 2015] that we lost 3-1, Chris Paul didn’t play the first two games and played on one leg and we didn’t have a home court. And then the last one [when the Clippers lost to the Denver Nuggets in 2020], for me it is the one we blew. This is the one I took. We failed that. And that was in the bubble. And anything can happen in a balloon. There is no home court. Game 7 would be in LA.
“It simply came to our notice then. So I would say with me, some of them are … I always have to do better. I always take my own responsibility. And then some of them happen, the circumstances. This one, let’s win it and we don’t need to talk about it. “
In 2003, Rivers and Orlando Magic – led by future Hall of Fame member Tracy McGrady, who won the goal-scoring title this season – took a 3-1 lead over the Pistons. It was the first season in which the NBA returned to a series of the top seven in the first round. It is known that McGrady – who never made it out of the first round of the playoffs until the end of his career with San Antonio – said after winning Game 4 to lead this 3-1 lead: “I feel good to you enter the second round “
Detroit immediately won the next three games with a combined 61 points to advance to the second round, then eventually lost to the New Jersey Nets in the Eastern Conference finals before winning the NBA title next season.
In 2015, Rivers took that 3-1 lead by coincidence with current 76ers star James Harden and basketball president Daryl Morrie, both of whom were with the Houston Rockets at the time, only to lose the last three games of the series. . That included a stunning home collapse in Game 6 when Houston beat the Clippers 40-15 (mostly with Harden watching from the bench) to turn a 13-point deficit at the start of the quarter into a 12-point victory before The series in Game 7 is over.
However, as Rivers said, the loss in 2020 is the most memorable. The Clippers – led by Cowie Leonard and Paul George, who had won last summer and selected by many to win the championship – took a 3-1 lead over the Nuggets, only to give a double-digit lead in each of the last three games in the series. at home from the NBA balloon at the Walt Disney World Resort outside of Orlando, Florida, in a truly shocking way.
For now, however, the 76ers are just trying to avoid adding to their already rough history. Last year alone, the 76ers advanced 26 points in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals with the Atlanta Hawks – before losing again on their home court in Game 7 in a game in which Ben Simmons missed an open shot late in the fourth quarter, starting the road. its about leaving Philadelphia forever.
So far in the series, the 76ers have beaten Toronto in the first two games, winning the sequel behind Joel Embiid’s heroism in Game 3, and then seeing the Raptors more or less in control of Games 4 and 5. Rivers said it could be difficult for a team to close another team, but after the way the series shook, both teams know what they have to do to win game 6.
“At 3-0, 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 win this match [in the first round of this year’s playoffs]. Everyone else lost this match.
“From a coaching point of view, you hate it because you feel, ‘Let’s just take care of it.’ Then you get to match 5 that night and they played better. We didn’t play well. We did not play with a sense of urgency. So now it is clear that both teams have given notice and both teams have the attention of the other team.
“If you don’t have it, we’re all in trouble.”
Asked what it would take to do things differently in Game 6, Rivers said the pace at which the 76ers played – particularly offensively – in the first two games and said Philadelphia would have to go back to that if it wanted to. close Toronto and avoid going back to play make or die 7 on Saturday night.
“Well, I still think something number one is 63% of the time we took the ball out of bounds in the last game,” Rivers said. “This means that in 37% of the time you just bring the ball in after a basket, free throw or something like that. So obviously it should be better.
“We need to make more stops because they don’t run … they run when they can, but when they don’t, they use the clock for up to 22 seconds. So the game is slow-paced and half-court. So, both: № 1, we need to make more stops; № 2, when we get stops and even with results, we have to play at a better pace. We move the ball up the court. “
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