Is 76ers Head Coach Doc Rivers on the “Hot Seat”? (12/30/21)

The 76ers currently have a record of 18–16. After a hot 8–2 start, the team has struggled with injuries/covid related issues, which has led the team to a 10–14 record ever since.

While key players’ missing time has certainly impacted the team’s play on the court, the coaching of Doc Rivers has negatively impacted this team.

The team’s biggest weakness has been their play down the stretch of games, and that has been because of bad play-calling during the last few minutes of games.

The Sixers have suffered multiple devastating losses this season where they should’ve easily won.

They had no excuse to lose against teams that were missing all of their key players due to injuries/covid in the Miami Heat and the Atlanta Hawks.

In both of those games, they had a lead late until the opposing team managed to take control and ultimately win the game.

The execution of the players played a part in the poor play down the stretch, but to let Gabe Vincent of the Heat and Bogdan Bogdanovic’ of the Hawks heat up late in the game is very problematic, and is a result of poor coaching and game planning.

In the Sixers game against the Celtics on December 1st, they were down by one point to Boston with enough time to score a basket and win the game against their arch-rivals, but rather Doc Rivers plugging in his starting point guard, Tyrese Maxey, he takes him out of the game, and has Tobias Harris handle the ball.

It all resulted in Harris missing a wide-open Danny Green who was the hot hand late in the game, and deciding to pass it to Georges Niang who ultimately had his shot blocked by former Sixer, Al Horford, to end the game with a one-point loss.

After last year’s playoffs, you think that Rivers learned that all-bench lineups don’t work when you don’t have enough depth.

Well, that has not been the case, as there have been a few instances this season where Rivers has plugged in his entire bench unit to compete against the best basketball players in the world, and as expected, it has failed miserably.

Rivers’ lack of in-game adjustments has been atrocious this season. In the game against the Jazz, the Sixers were trailing by seven during halftime. The lack of adjustments Rivers made during the half led the team to lose by a total of 22 points.

If the Sixers continue to struggle the rest of the way, then the organization should consider parting ways with Rivers.