Doc Rivers details the difficulty of coaching the Sixers during a pandemic
The Sixers have faced obstacles in the season's first month. Chief among them are playing with shortened rosters and quarantining on the road.
Doc Rivers was happy to have a full practice Tuesday, something of a rarity for his 76ers team since the season started on Dec. 23.
That is because games have been scheduled either every other day or back-to-back during this condensed NBA season and that has put practice for the most part on the back burner.
Tuesday was the first time since the first week of the season, when the Sixers were off Dec. 24 and 25, that they have had more than one day off between games.
Actually, the Sixers received an extra day when their game Sunday at Oklahoma City was postponed because of COVID-19 contact tracing.
The Sixers last played Saturday in a 106-104 loss in Memphis. They’ll return to action Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center against the Boston Celtics.
As much as Rivers enjoyed the chance to work extensively with his team Tuesday at practice, he also talked about the toll that COVID-19 has taken, not just on the Sixers but society in general.
“Everybody’s in it [and] we can’t lose sight of that, either,” Rivers said after practice. “It is every day, everywhere, in every office, so it is in our workplace as well.”
He said that not everyone has dealt with the coronavirus the same way and as a coach he has to realize there will be different ways his players will cope with things.
“The other thing that I try to be aware of is everyone that has dealt with this virus differently,” Rivers said. “There are some guys who have no fear and then there are some guys who have tons of anxiety about it and there’s nothing you can do about that. That doesn’t make them weak, that makes them aware and so you’ve got to watch that, too.”
He expanded on that comment. “There are several guys that just the whole virus, it freaks them out and we’ve got to deal with that, too, so there’s a lot of issues for a lot of teams,” Rivers said.
Because of this, Rivers has leaned on his fellow coaches for advice. “I don’t think I have talked to as many head coaches during the season as I have during this season,” he said.
Sunday was the second time this season that the Sixers could not leave a city because of contact tracing/quarantining. They had to stay overnight in Oklahoma City. That’s because they played against Memphis center Jonas Valanciunas on Saturday, and he entered the league’s health and safety protocols the next day.
The Sixers returned to Philadelphia on Monday with no new positive COVID-19 tests to report.
The first time the Sixers were affected was on Jan. 8 when Seth Curry was informed early in a 122-109 loss to the Brooklyn Nets that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. That forced the team to quarantine and contact-trace in a New York hotel the night after the game and the next day.
Rivers has had to deal with having only eight players, of which only seven were available, in a 115-103 loss to Denver on Jan. 9 because of contract tracing and injuries, and nine players the next game on Jan. 11 in a 112-94 loss at Atlanta.
“I have had teams with a lot of injuries before, but have not had teams where we had to stay extra nights in cities twice already,” Rivers said.
So the entire experience has caused challenges that Rivers hasn’t experienced in his previous 21 seasons as an NBA head coach.
“It has absolutely been very difficult, not only just trying to play games with not enough guys, but because we’re so new to each other, and just trying to get the execution part of our team together,” Rivers said. “I mean, you would hope at this point you have a lot of it and we just don’t. And so you’ve just got to keep working on it. A lot of teams are going through it. So we just have to keep pushing forward.”