Montrezl Harrell discusses Sixers bench unit’s struggles in loss to Celtics
BOSTON–The Philadelphia 76ers made moves in the offseason in order to help bolster the bench unit and improve the depth surrounding their star duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden. On paper, they look like great moves, but they struggled on opening night.
The Sixers fell in the season opener 126-117 to the Boston Celtics on the road. Philadelphia only received 11 bench points, five from De’Anthony Melton, and they weren’t able to give the starters the boost they needed.
100 of Philadelphia’s 117 points came from Harden, Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Tobias Harris and the Sixers needed more help than that.
“Honestly, I don’t know,”said Montrezl Harrell when asked of the bench unit’s struggles. “We wasn’t even out there with each other a good deal normally how we would be. A lot of adjustments that need to be made, but thankfully, there’s 81 more games to do that.”
Harrell is correct. There are 81 games left in the season and it won’t be defined over any one game. There were some questions that arose after the season opener, but the Sixers are still going to win a lot of games. The key is going to be able to learn and grow from this.
The bench unit has proven scorers. Melton, Harrell, Danuel House Jr., Georges Niang, and others can put the ball in the basket. They will just have to figure it out now.
“It’s only game one so it’s a lot to take away from this game both offensively and defensively,” Harrell added. “We just gotta go back to the drawing board and do that.”
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