Philadelphia 76ers: Doc Rivers has to make in-game adjustments

Joel Embiid is unqestionably one of the best players in the NBA.

He’s the world’s best center, a legit threat to score from anywhere, and still one of the preeminent foul drawers in the Association, even if his numbers are down from seasons prior.

On a bad team, Embiid raises the team’s floor well outside of the lottery, and on a good team? Well, he might just be good enough to push a complementary team to the NBA Finals.

And yet, Embiid isn’t a machine. He has off nights just like the rest of us and can’t be expected to turn in an all-timer every single time he takes the court.

When that happens? The Philadelphia 76ers’ margin for error shrinks significantly, as they just don’t make enough in-game adjustments to maintain a lead or overcome a deficit.

The Philadelphia 76ers have to make in-game adjustments to overcome their on-court woes.

Sure, they can get out to an early lead, especially when Seth Curry and Danny Green are draining 3 points at well over a 50 percent clip, but the team just can’t seem to keep their foot on the gas for a full 48 minutes, even if there’s no real reason why that’s the case.

But why? Between Joel Embiid, Andre Drummond, and Tyrese Maxey, you’d think the team would get plenty of points in the paint and at least keep adding to their total while forcing opponents into even riskier shot attempts as any given game goes on.

Easy: Doc Rivers doesn’t make in-game adjustments.

Case and point, the Sixers’ loss to the New York Knicks. Embiid clearly wasn’t playing at 100 percent for one reason or another, but instead of making adjustments to support his center, who went scoreless from the field in the first half, he watched the team get outscored in the second quarter 39-16 with seldom a timeout to potentially stop the bleeding.

He kept Point Furkan Korkmaz’s usage high even when his efficiency didn’t warrant it, and the team ultimately failed to find any sort of offensive identity when they couldn’t just lob the ball to Embiid seconds into the shot clock and expect him to cook.

All in all, this might just go down as Rivers’ worst coaching job of the season, which is a true shame, considering the team actually had a pretty good gameplan right out of the gate. Both Curry and Tobias Harris were aggressively hunting 3s right from opening tip, even if they largely didn’t go in, and the team at least had a plan to try to slow down Julius Randle, holding him to a season-low 16 points on 18 shots.

And yet, none of that really matters because the shots didn’t fall, and Embiid didn’t turn in the sort of glowing effort that overshadows some of the team’s flaws.

Make no mistake about it; it was never going to be easy to overcome the absence of Ben Simmons. While the team has been able to turn in dominant efforts versus lesser competition, their flaws have been on full display when facing off against marquee Eastern Conference teams. Once the Simmons situation gets resolved, Doc Rivers is going to need to turn in some of the best coaching performances of his career, which is a lot easier said than done, considering his history.