‘Schedule loss’ comment puts Doc Rivers on the Sixers hot seat again. It shouldn’t.

Doc Rivers said something that sounded dumb, again, and people took offense, again. But this time what he said was neither dumb, at least not in content; nor offensive, if you want to be honest. That’s what Doc was: honest.

Doc just said the quiet part loudly. That can be a problem in Philly.

Then again, no matter what town you’re coaching in, when you’ve berated your team’s fans and media in the past, and when you’ve failed twice in the playoffs with an MVP-caliber player in his prime, you don’t get a lot of leeway.

The unfortunate piece of this situation is that Rivers and his Sixers staff have, lately, been coaching magnificently. They’ve won seven of 10, all without injured guard James Harden and the last seven without Tyrese Maxey (fractured foot), while Joel Embiid and even iron man Tobias Harris have been missing games, too.

Well, we all make our beds. Rivers made his two years ago, largely by defending an indefensible Ben Simmons. Nothing less than a title run will change his profile in Philly.

Meanwhile, the wolves will always be ready to pounce.

After the Sixers lost at Cleveland on Wednesday, Rivers said:

“It was a schedule loss. That’s how I felt.”

» READ MORE: NBA championship odds: 76ers holding steady in betting market

First: He said “schedule loss,” not “scheduled loss,” as some listeners might have heard.

The difference:

There are two types of “scheduled losses.” One involves intentionally resting or limiting the best players’ minutes against a superior opponent against whom you have little chance of winning anyway.

The other type is tanking. The Sixers once executed 253 of these sorts of “scheduled losses” in a five-year span. They called it “The Process.”

A “schedule loss,” on the other hand, means that a team’s itinerary puts it in a position that makes a particular game virtually unwinnable. This was the case here.

The Sixers played their fifth game in eight days on Wednesday in Cleveland. The first three were on the road, the fourth was at home, then back on the plane to Ohio — so, essentially, a five-game road trip, since one day back in Philly barely gives you time enough to hug your kid and, um, kiss your wife.

There were other unpopular utterances.

To prepare his troops for this arduous task, Rivers laid it out:

“I told our guys before the game, ‘It’s going to be a hard game. They’re fresh. They’re going to attack you. They do not want to lose to you again, and if you don’t have a great mental mindset, tonight, it’s going to be a tough game.’ ”

This pregame address was something less than stirring, but you’re not going to Vince Lombardi a bunch of grown-man millionaires into sacrificing their bodies on a cold night in an ugly barn on the banks of Lake Erie. If they want to earn their paycheck in that kind of game, that’s up to them — especially in the 22nd game of a season that will, ideally, drag long past the 82-game minimum and into late spring.

Rivers declined the opportunity to clarify his statements Thursday afternoon. However, through a Sixers spokesman, he acknowledged the team’s general success over the last few games.

You can blame Doc & Co. if you like, but the Sixers — particularly Embiid — on Wednesday certainly did not have a “great mental mindset.”

They also didn’t have a great physical lineup.

» READ MORE: How Sixers embody ‘stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready’ mantra

Embiid, Harris, and P.J. Tucker were the only available regular starters, and two of them weren’t 100 percent.

It was Embiid’s second game in three days after missing four straight with a foot injury. He also has missed eight of 22 games this season. He’s not in game shape, as usual, and he looked like it Wednesday: 19 points on 6-of-16 shooting.

At least Embiid hit some field goals. Harris did not.

He went 0-for-7, all in the first half, because he didn’t emerge for the second half. Stomach bug. As it turns out, he felt as sickly as he played. Harris also missed two games 10 days before with a nagging hip injury, which is part of the reason he has hit only 22% of his three-pointers in his last nine games.

Shake Milton and De’Anthony Melton, slated as backups to start the season, rounded out the starters, and they hit a wall Wednesday night. Milton has tripled his minutes in the last seven games, to more than 37 per night. Melton has been playing about 10 more minutes per night — about 34 per game.

“You could see guys had no energy, no legs,” Rivers said Wednesday. “So, not much tonight.”

Again, a blue-collar city populated by shift workers who take buses to their first job before the sun rises and then take trains from home from their second job in the dark of night, this is not a palatable explanation for the failures of young men who run around dribbling in short pants two hours every other day.

It’s truth — everybody gets tired — but it’s an unwelcome truth.

It’s too bad that this kerfuffle occurred in this moment. The Sixers have been playing beyond their capacity; they entered Wednesday ranked first in points allowed per game, first in three-point defense, and second in defensive rating.

They’ve succeeded thanks to the depth of a roster built by Daryl Morey, and thanks to clever use of second-line assets by Rivers and his assistants.

Further, the Cavaliers are very good. At 14-8, they stand in third place in the Eastern Conference, two spots ahead of the 12-10 76ers. They’re also 9-1 at home.

The Sixers, on their best day, with a healthy team, probably weren’t going to win this game. To some degree, that’s all Doc was saying.

Of course, he probably shouldn’t have said it quite the way he did.