February 26, 2024

Doc Rivers reflects on time in Philadelphia: 'I just wish we could have gone further'

Doc Rivers returned to Philadelphia for the first time since being fired as Sixers coach on Sunday. Here is what he had to say:

By Adam Aaronson
PhillyVoice Staff

Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports

Doc Rivers and Joel Embiid during their time together with the Sixers.

Former Sixers head coach Doc Rivers made his return to Philadelphia on Sunday as the newly minted head coach of the rival Milwaukee Bucks.

In his first availability with Philadelphia media since the post-game press conference after the team's devastating Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics last season, Rivers discussed his eventful, memorable and tumultuous three-year tenure leading the Sixers -- a period which will forever be associated with missed opportunities.

"I was happy with it overall," Rivers said of his time in Philadelphia. "I just wish we could have gone further."

Rivers is hung up on a different loss than most of the city of Philadelphia. What most Sixers fans remember is that Game 7 defeat, when Joel Embiid and James Harden both came up small and the Celtics obliterated a Sixers team that had been on the verge of hosting the Eastern Conference Finals.

For Rivers, though, it is the loss that came three days earlier which stings the most. In Game 6, the Sixers led Boston in the fourth quarter, on their home floor, with a chance to end the series. A monumental collapse in the final moments sunk the Sixers, sending them back to Boston for the Game 7 they would go on to lose in catastrophic fashion.

"The game we should have won was Game 6. We did something to get there, and it just tells you how close we were. I look back on that and think, [Embiid] wasn't 100 percent last year, so things happen, and you just live with them."

"I thought Game 6 was our game," he reiterated a few minutes later. "I didn't think [Embiid] got the ball enough, and trust me, [the plan was] for him to get it."

Despite the Sixers blowing a 3-2 lead in the series, Rivers portrayed last season's team as a true underdog in every sense of the word. He dove into that on multiple occasions throughout his 10-minute media availability.

"Maybe they were better? Could that be a possibility?" Rivers asked the room of reporters.

"By a show of hands, who picked the Sixers?" he asked moments later. The room was silent for a few seconds. "That's the point," Rivers said.

Rivers' comments are not without some validity. The Sixers were an elite regular season team during his three seasons in Philadelphia, and Rivers was one of the reasons why Embiid catapulted from being a plain old superstar into being the NBA MVP. And Rivers did have to deal with his fair share of drama as he coached Ben Simmons and then Harden amid some locker room turmoil.

But at the end of the day, Rivers should be assigned a great deal of responsibility for not just the team's successes under his watch, but its shortcomings. That includes three exits in the second round in as many years -- with two of those losses coming in embarrassing fashion.

There was the stunning collapse against the Atlanta Hawks in 2021, in which the top-seeded Sixers blew a 27-point lead in Game 5 and went out in crushing fashion in Game 7. And, of course, last season's disastrous end to the season, in which the Sixers blew two chances to finally overcome their Boston demons and knock the Celtics out of the playoffs.

Rivers' time in Philadelphia was extremely similar to his time in Los Angeles when he was in charge of the Clippers: he enjoyed tremendous regular season success, leading to heightened expectations when the lights were at their brightest, which all blew up in flames right around the second round of the playoffs.

Rivers has become infamous for his deflection of blame after excruciating playoff losses. But the fact is this: he is the common denominator.