Tyrese Maxey led the Sixers offense with 21 points on 9-for-11 shooting. Joel Embiid added 12 points and 6 rebounds, while James Harden posted 9 points and 5 assists.
The Sixers’ head coach is back to work.
After missing Wednesday’s preseason win over the Cavs because he was feeling under the weather, Doc Rivers ran practice Friday at the team’s facility in Camden, New Jersey. As usual, he then faced a scrum of reporters.
“I feel good. Until right now,” Rivers joked. “Nah, I feel great.”
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Rivers, who said he took in the Cleveland game from his couch, watched his starters face another team for the first time.
Tobias Harris didn’t love the Sixers' showing on defense.
“Defensively, I thought we were a little bit too all over the place vs. Cleveland,” Harris said. “Just getting our schemes and our matchups right. There were a lot of situations where we could’ve switched.
“We gave up way too many open threes in transition and didn’t do a great job of communicating matchups. … I don’t think anyone was happy with our production out there defensively. So we see a lot of things that we can grow and get better at. And we will. It’s just taking time, dissecting film, and figuring out areas of growth.”
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On a positive note, Rivers was pleased with how the Sixers trapped pick-and-rolls in the second half, mentioning he wants to do that more moving forward as part of embracing an aggressive style.
It sounds like successful variety in pick-and-roll coverage would be easier if the Sixers all talked (and sometimes screamed) on the floor like P.J. Tucker.
“I think we have so many different guys who come from so many different systems,” Rivers said. “And the clearer you are, the louder you are, the (more) times you yell it, it’s very important. We don’t do that yet … some guys do. P.J. is phenomenal at it. We need everybody to be.”
When Tucker was asked about communication, he got in a small, playful jab at Joel Embiid.
“Two more (preseason) games, but now we want to start getting better each game, see stuff being worked out in practice and start to show in the games. You’ve got Joel talking. To hear him talking today was crazy, so we’ll try to build off that, see what happens tomorrow,” Tucker said with a laugh.
The Sixers haven’t shown it in games yet, but Tucker’s ability to back up Embiid is still worth highlighting.
Paul Reed has played before Montrezl Harrell in both preseason contests, though Rivers has consistently framed the center spot as a versatile cast of characters.
“It’s coming along great,” Rivers said. “I think P-Reed’s playing well. I think Trez has played well. The only guy we really haven’t had at the five yet is Tuck. … We’ll probably do that — definitely in one of the next two games.”
Tucker’s knack for handling life as a 6-foot-5 "big man" tends to come in handy.
Bam Adebayo’s thumb surgery last season led to a bigger spotlight on Tucker. He posted a career-high 0.93 assist-to-usage ratio, per Cleaning the Glass. The 37-year-old also took his highest proportion of short mid-range attempts ever (27 percent) and made a career-best 50.4 percent of them, employing push shots and floaters quite effectively.
Compared to when he was a starting center for the Rockets in 2020, does Tucker think his game at the five has changed?
“I don’t know if it’s any different,” he said. “Just the style of play of the team may be a little different. But for me, it’s still the same pretty much when I play the five, because it’s not really like a true five.
“Obviously I’m not going to go down and post up to actually post up — mismatches, maybe. But outside of that at the five, it’s getting guys open, creating situations where they can’t help from the (three-point line), especially when I’m in the corner. And being a facilitator; being able to get guys open and give them the ball.”
On Saturday, Tucker, Rivers and the Sixers will travel to Wilmington, Delaware. The team’s annual Blue-White scrimmage is set to tip off at 12 p.m.
Rivers doesn’t hope to get anything grand out of the occasion.
“Other than health?” he said with a laugh. “Really just a scrimmage, getting us down the floor. I think it’s really important for us. We have a lot of days off as far as (no) games and this kind of falls right in the center of that, so it’s good.
“We had a really good practice today, got a lot up and down, but it was more a controlled scrimmage. And every time we scrimmage, it’s good. I hope they take it seriously. Half the time they don’t in these games. We’ll see what happens.”
