Doc Rivers talks balance of playing vs. rest for Sixers with playoffs near
PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers are sitting at 50-26 as they continue to push toward the playoffs. They have six games left, a game each with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics, and the focus for coach Doc Rivers and his staff is now preparing the team for the games that matter most.
Considering that their two top players, Joel Embiid and James Harden, are nursing injuries, it would make sense for the Sixers to rest those two guys with so much at stake come playoff time.
However, they also have to be sure that they’re in rhythm to get going again so that is where the balance of playing games vs. resting comes in for Rivers.
“I’m not worried about rest as much anymore, honestly,” said Rivers. “Because we have a week now with the play-in. That’s the one great thing about the play-in. You do get a little bit of time to practice and rest so we are probably focused way more on conditioning than we are rest.”
The coach is right about the play-in tournament. The regular season ends on April 9, but the playoffs won’t start until April 15 due to the play-in tournament taking place April 11-14. That would give the Sixers some time to get some practice in as well as some rest to prepare for what they hope will be a deep postseason run.
The one player who Rivers might want to focus on resting is De’Anthony Melton. Their do-it-all guard has been averaging a career-high in minutes and he has played a career-high 2,055 minutes thus far. His previous career-high in minutes was 1,657 so he is way past that number.
“There may be a guy, I’ll use one for you, Melt,” Rivers added. “That we would consider resting than more conditioning. He’s in great shape, but he’s played a ton of minutes and he’s really not been 100% all year so he would be a guy that you would balance that. No one else, really.”
With six games to go, the Sixers will have to figure out how they’re going to handle everything as they move forward in preparation for the postseason.
