The Philadelphia 76ers hoped Doc Rivers would lead them to a championship, and they did everything to help the coach. However, not even the trade for James Harden was enough to change his fate.
Rivers’ poor record at crucial playoff games only got worse this year, with his team blowing a 3-2 lead over the Boston Celtics to once again get eliminated in the Conference Semifinals.
After three straight postseason shortcomings, the team decided to make a coaching change by hiring Nick Nurse. Rivers recently opened up on his time in Philly, describing his experience of coaching Harden as ‘challenging.’
Doc Rivers says coaching James Harden was a challenge
“It was challenging,” Rivers told Bill Simmons on his podcast. “More because we were fighting two things, and not visually fighting. But James was so good at playing one way, and the way I believe you have to play to win in some ways is different because it’s a lot of giving up the ball, moving the ball, and coming back to the ball. I would have loved to have him younger.
“At times, to get him to move and play the way I needed him to play [was challenging], I thought the first half of the year we were the best team in the game. I thought James was playing perfect basketball, he was a point guard on the team, and he was still scoring, but he was doing more playmaking and scoring. And then in the second half he started scoring more, and I thought we got more stagnant at times.”
Many things have been said about Rivers and Harden’s relationship, but the former Sixers coach seems to have no hard feelings. However, it will always be a shame that things didn’t work out on the court.
