The Philadelphia 76ers were undefeated in the postseason ahead of their Game 4 matchup against the Toronto Raptors. However, the Raptors ended that streak to keep their playoff hopes alive, closing in on the Sixers' series lead, now 3-1.
The Saturday afternoon game was extremely physical, tense, and even sloppy at times. However, most of the sloppiness came from the Sixers. The team only made 34 of 80 field-goal attempts, greatly contributing to the loss.
Throughout the game, it was obvious that the Sixers were unhappy with calls and no-calls in favor of the Raptors. The officiating team called 26 fouls against Philadelphia and 20 against Toronto throughout the matchup.
Despite their emotions during the game, the Sixers took full responsibility for their loss. Doc Rivers even took the opportunity to get a leg-up on opposing head coach Nick Nurse.
NBC Sports Philadelphia's John Clark tweeted Rivers' snarky postgame quote Saturday afternoon.
“They deserved to win the game. I’m not going to sit here and complain. I’m not going to, like they do. We got beat tonight”
-Doc Rivers 😂 pic.twitter.com/bOH4ocpPHb
— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) April 23, 2022
Rivers is likely referring to Nurse's postgame interview from Game 1 of the series. The Raptors coach vocalized his issues with the officiating following Toronto's 131-111 loss. He specifically had problems with no-calls against Joel Embiid.
“I thought he [Embiid] threw three or four elbows to the face, he got called for one,” Nurse said.
However, he did also note that his team had to play “a lot better” and “a lot tougher” to come out of this series on top.
Regardless of mistakes made by both the players and the officials, the series must go on. The Sixers host the Raptors in Philadelphia for Game 5 Monday night.
Follow Us
Subscribe