As expected, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Brooklyn Nets produced an intense battle on Wednesday night. The Sixers fans set the stage early on as they made sure to welcome Ben Simmons back in Philly with some savagery. True enough, the game carried on with a lot of emotion riding on what was anything but any other regular-season game.
In the end, the Sixers managed to escape with a hard-fought 137-133 win against the Nets. For his part, however, Philly head coach Doc Rivers wasn't exactly delighted with how his team played throughout the game. He's happy with the win, but Doc knows his team's emotions nearly got the better of them:
“There’s a difference between intensity, playing with emotion, and being too emotional,” Rivers explained, via Justin Grasso of the SunHerald. “I thought I saw our side of it; we were on the wrong side of that a lot tonight.”
To be clear, the veteran coach is more than happy with the victory, especially considering the circumstances. He knows that his boys battled hard, and he appreciated the effort they put in against the Nets:
“We’ll take the win,” Rivers continued. “Both teams are coming from a west coast trip, you know, you didn’t know how that was going to go. I thought both teams performed well, but that’s a good test for us.”
Nevertheless, Doc Rivers just wants to remind his team to play with more maturity. Basketball requires a certain level of vigor from the players, but it's important not to let yourself get carried away. It is clear that coach Doc will be beating on this same drum over and over again with his players.
“We have to be better as far as handling our emotions,” he finished. “It’s good to have emotions. You want to have intensity and emotion, but you don’t want to be emotional. I thought we were a lot tonight.”
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