Despite the fact that they squandered a golden opportunity to advance to the Conference Finals for the first time since 2001, Doc Rivers remains faithful to his Philadelphia 76ers squad.
In the postgame, Rivers described that his team’s locker room didn’t look devastated by the outcome of their Game 6 loss against the Boston Celtics, as they look forward to the upcoming series finale on the weekend in Boston.
“We knew we had to go through this team. Nothing’s changed. They all were saying that,” said Rivers following the 76ers’ 95-86 loss. “It wasn’t a down locker room.
“I mean, they were disappointed they lost the game, but you didn’t have a locker room of anybody feeling defeated or anything like that. I can guarantee that.”
The 76ers exited their dominant Game 5 fashion with all of that confidence to finally end their series. They were already poised to book a Conference Finals spot until they had a blunderous meltdown in the final five minutes of regulation in Game 6.
Still leading 83-81, Philadelphia looked lost and passive to close out the Thursday match. From 5:51 left, they went on to register a lowly three markers in a horrendous 1-of-10 shooting from the floor until the final buzzer.
As they struggled to nail their shots, it then served as a perfect storm for Boston to force the series to Game 7 courtesy of Jayson Tatum, who had 16 fourth-quarter points and a heroic stretch coming off a slump from the first three periods to ice the Celtics’ triumph.
The stage is set on Sunday for the epic Game 7 clash of both heavyweight teams.
This will mark the 16th time that Rivers will appear in a Game 7, having a 6-9 record. He is yet to win one on the road.
“You have no choice. You really don’t. You watch film, you find areas where you can improve, things that we didn’t do. I thought we had a self-inflicted wounds tonight, I think those are easy to fix,” Rivers said.
“You get them ready and you know you can win there. We’ve done that just like they’ve won here.”
