76ers' Doc Rivers preparing for star-less Nets as playoff series looms
Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers gestures to officials during the first half of a game against Golden State in San Francisco, on March 24, 2023. Credit: AP/Jeff Chiu
Doc Rivers was preparing for an irrelevant regular-season finale against the Nets on Sunday, admittedly thinking more about watching the Masters than about mastering Yuta Watanabe.
Then the 76ers coach was asked about how he will prepare his team for the playoffs against the same team, given their glaring lack of superstars.
After all, don’t they say you need stars to win in the NBA playoffs?
“Well, they say you have to have stars to win a championship,” Rivers said. “They don’t say you have to have stars to win a series. It’s a big difference.”
Indeed, while the 76ers of Joel Embiid and James Harden are far better situated to win it all, the Nets of Mikal Bridges and Spencer Dinwiddie could make things difficult for them in the first round, which begins Saturday.
Rivers had to invoke the famously star-challenged 2003-04 Pistons to find an NBA Finals winner one could compare to the Nets, but there are numerous examples of such teams pulling early upsets.
“I think since the trade [deadline], they’ve added some interesting pieces,” said Rivers, a former Knicks player who coached the 2007-08 Celtics to a championship.
“Cam [Johnson] and Mikal, I think they’re free and playing well. They are all long. They’re a very switchable team . . . They’re capable scorers and they just have a lot of guys. You can’t key on one or two.”
The sixth-seeded Nets (45-37) also have the luxury of modest expectations outside their locker room in the post-Kevin Durant/Kyrie Irving era.
The third-seeded 76ers (54-28) have to win; the Nets are an under-the-radar threat, a distant second in postseason attention in their own city.
After Sunday’s 134-105 loss to the 76ers at Barclays Center, Nets coach Jacque Vaughn was asked what his message to the team would be.
“Enjoy this thing,” he said. “There are a lot of teams. You have colleagues and friends across the league that will be watching you play next week. So enjoy it, embrace it. Let’s try to figure this thing out along the way. But be thankful for the opportunity.”
Vaughn has been a ray of sunshine since succeeding Steve Nash in November, a relentlessly positive figure who guided the team through another weird, whiplash-inducing season of ups and downs.
“I just love the game of basketball because there’s life lessons in it also, even at this stage of these dudes’ careers and lives and families,” Vaughn said on Sunday.
“So I want them to reflect back on this time that we didn’t choose to make an excuse where we had every opportunity provided to us to do that.
“And somehow, we figured out how to stay together, how to continue to grow with each other, lean on each other.”
Positive vibes such as those have a place, but they will not make it any easier to guard Embiid, the favorite to be named NBA MVP. “They have a lot of guys and play hard and they have a lot of talent,” Bridges told Newsday. “They’re the third seed for a reason. It’s going to be so much fun.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
