You only need to search for Ben Simmons’s name on Google to find out that most people, locals or others, should be responsible for the 76ers’ second round loss. Familiarity with his problems in the second round prompted even his sharpest defenders to reconsider whether he should stay in Philadelphia for a long time.

But these conversations allowed an important fact about the 76ers’ second-round series to slip behind the scenes: Rivers was as bad as Simmons in the seven games against Atlanta, and he encountered problems that have plagued him for years. The playoffs failed.

No, this is not another league lead loss after his 3-1 lead in the series. The 76ers only managed to create a 2-1 lead before the collapse. But this is as bad as defining his loss in the title race as a head coach after 2008. From the beginning of the series, Rivers chose strategies and decisions that clearly harmed the 76ers, and he continued these choices until they were defeated in the 7th game.

It all started in the first game, when the 76ers chose to let Danny Green start the series with Tre Young and Joel Embiid. He slammed into the rim and made Young a scorer and throw The same, predictable appearance was almost 24 minutes on him. This choice immediately backfired. Young ruled the Philadelphia team in the first half of the first game and opened the series with a close victory. To make matters worse, Rivers expanded Atlanta’s initial haystacks and entered the full bench, turning the double-digit deficit into a 20+ point gap, and the 76ers would never be able to climb out. The 76ers basically gave up the game and home court advantage. The original plan was that if they were handed over to almost all reliable analysts before the series, they would fall apart.

The second half of that game can Used to prove that Rivers was ready to adjust quickly, Philadelphia slowly gave Atlanta the lead in the final 24 minutes. Even there, you can find the source of anger. The 76ers’ pressure defense disturbed a group of young Hawks promoters late in the game. Why not try to turn the tide at the last minute in other games in the series? Heck, why not try to disrupt Atlanta’s offensive rhythm in the middle of the game and try to create some unexpected value from the struggling second team throughout the series?

Keeping their adjustments simple and clear was initially the right move by Philadelphia. The simple act of transferring Ben Simmons to Trae Young and mixing their defensive coverage allowed them to briefly control the series, slowing down Atlanta’s offense, and allowing Joel En Bid (Joel Embiid) succeeded on the other end. This is a team that ended with the No. 1 seed for good reason-their A plan is enough to beat other Eastern Conference competitors in the regular season, and maintaining a well-functioning structure is an admirable goal .

But when plan A No Work, this is where the head coach needs to figure out some things. When Embiid was in the process of a second-half collapse in Game 4, Rivers needed to find out who and how to solve this problem. This is not to say that they have no answers, even players who are bad throughout the series-when Rivers made a conscious effort to get Simmons on the court in the second half of the third game, the 76ers were able to open the score. And keep the game going smoothly. Will having Simmons participate in it will stop his final series of death spirals? I personally doubt it, but the 76ers hardly bother to try.

Since the end of the series, there have been reasons to be more tolerant of Rivers’s substitute mob crimes than most people I think. Using Tobias Harris as the only star next to the bench is basically the only way to avoid a toxic combination involving Simmons and Dwight Howard, while allowing Embiid to maintain the same minutes in his best season ever Cap.

But Rivers did not try in the second round, which is actually an accusation of their lack of attempts in the regular season. I don’t believe in Simmons’s defensive center lineup, but the 76ers not only did not give them a real chance to burn, they also refused to change their defensive philosophy to achieve these goals. Simmons’s lineup in the fives and the players around him should switch as much as possible to beat the team with speed rather than strength. That never happened. When they clearly needed these groupings in the second round, Howard was drowning in his role as a backup center, and it was too late to expect any ability in the alternative settings to fill the gap.

Frankly speaking, the biggest complaint against Rivers came from his 7th game. They must have made some adjustments-Embiid played early in Game 7 to get him back on the court and help the bench faster. This is a defensive choice for Rivers. What can’t be defended is that they continued to rely on invalid benches in 7 consecutive games. In 84 games in a season, they have proven ineffective in pushing Philadelphia to victory. In the seventh game of a life-and-death game, one of his starters was out, and Rivers went deep into 10 players.

You can prove that some coaches are and also Their performance in Game 7 was extremely extreme. Brooklyn and Milwaukee allowed their stars to shine, so much so that Kevin Durant performed well in the final glance of the playoffs, leading the Nets for 53 consecutive minutes. But Rivers, on the contrary, used conservative playing time allocation and lived in fear of foul trouble all night. Seth Curry, Philadelphia’s second-ranked player in the series, played less than 31 minutes on Sunday night. Seeking to protect him from his own injury would only cost the 76ers one of their most influential offensive players. Worse still, when the Hawks needed the basket in the second half, Rivers never came up with a way to do it. Help Curry become a defensive target. Philadelphia got the best of both worlds.

If Rivers just wanted to give his stars more rest in the first half so that they could empty the tank in the second half, that would be great. But we encountered many bad combinations throughout the game, from the terrible Howard/Simmons combination to using four substitutes at once in the second half. After putting him on the bench for the first 36 minutes of the game and being cold, his major adjustments in the fourth quarter were almost half of this quarter.Milton can do anything It was definitely a miracle to be in that position, and his only goal was to move up and down in the last minute of the game.

The biggest criticism of Rivers over the years is that he cannot change in order to cater to the present. Opponent coach Nate McMillan does not have the reputation of being a master manipulator, but he is willing to throw things at the wall to see what works. Capella Collins Gallinari of Atlanta’s super-large lineup looks ridiculous on paper, but because McMillan has discovered that Simmons can’t or won’t attack Gallo, the Hawks can extract from him while avoiding any pain. The greatest value is on defense.

Philadelphia’s inability to hunt down bad defenders is undoubtedly a complaint against players, especially Harris, who has spent the entire season looking for defensive weaknesses for a living. But Rivers himself was very responsible for this failure. Philadelphia’s defeat in Game 5 was possible because they could not disrupt the worst defensive backcourt in the playoffs (Young and Lou Williams). Two nights later, a pair of partners, Tyrese. Maxi blew himself up quickly in his sixth away victory.

I would never say that the “worst” thing a coach did in a playoff series was a sentence they made between or after games. But Rivers’ immediate reaction to the 76ers’ seventh loss was to ease the blow, framing their failure last season as a step forward for the 76ers.

“This team was swept in the first round last year. We have a chance to enter the championship game and enter the Eastern Conference finals. I will not let this year be a negative year,” Rivers said on Sunday evening.

Rivers has played and coached in the avid East Coast market, and he knows better than this. Does the 76ers perform better in the 2020-21 season than in the 2019-20 season? undoubtedly. When you are wasting the best way for your team to reach the Finals in 20 years, does anyone want to hear that? of course not. Rivers tells anyone who is willing to listen to this team’s bar throughout the season, as the No. 1 seed, this is not a second round loss. Even his players admitted that they have a unique opportunity after this defeat, which makes any coach’s reason irrelevant.

“This is an opportunity for us to set our own way, the way the stars adjust for us,” Danny Green said on Monday. “Due to injuries, we are the number one seed with home court advantage. We play for Washington, and then we don’t have to play Brooklyn or Milwaukee. The second round of the game [winner of] Atlanta New York Series…The finals have never been smooth sailing, and winning the championship is not an easy road. But if you can ask again, I will choose that route 10 times out of 10 times. I am choosing home advantage and playing against these teams. “

“You can’t ask for better settings or better opportunities to take advantage of. You try to reiterate to those people, see, this is a lifetime opportunity. But we can’t skip any steps. We are too looking forward to the past tasks, the challenges at hand. Instead of focusing on tomorrow. Instead, I think we got it, I won’t say that we became lazy or anything, we just skipped some steps and became too comfortable. We look forward, like, oh “Who are we going to hit next? No, we must win now and win tomorrow. “

The recruitment was sold as a means to increase accountability and elevate this core to a height they had never reached before. However, the veteran of this team tells you that at the most important time, the team couldn’t focus on the task at hand and killed the series in a match with a group they had already neglected.

As with Simmons, all of these mistakes are more frustrating because they are the kind of mistakes Rivers we’ve seen before and are used to discuss the disadvantages of his hiring when they happen. Since Rivers has had a positive impact on the 76ers this season, it is easy to put his past failures in the background, especially when he proves willing to change the status quo to win the game in the regular season. For example, Philadelphia’s 2-3 zone made a comeback in the away game against Indiana. This was an unexpected curve kick that helped them steal the game. This is an inspiring sight from a zone who doesn’t particularly like the start of the game. The coaching staff and.

But just as we evaluate Simmons’ failure in the playoffs rather than his regular season performance, when he must beat his opponent four times to advance, Rivers’ value will ultimately be determined. He is as bad as the star point guard who suffered the defeat in Philadelphia. If he did not reflect as seriously as many people asked Simmons this summer, then we are likely to have the same discussion at the end of the season. Philadelphia’s next season.

Follow Kyle on Twitter: @Kyle newback