Doc Rivers Encourages Seth Curry to Continue Launching Threes at High Rate

Last season, Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers found himself urging his starting shooting guard to take more threes. Although Seth Curry's an established sharpshooter from beyond the arc, the veteran guard often passed up shots he should've taken. 

This year, Rivers doesn't want to see the same thing happening. As Curry's coming off of a career year in Philly and drilled 45-percent of his threes last season, Rivers wants the guard to continue shooting at a high rate and stop passing up open shots.

"Shoot it," said Rivers on Thursday night when explaining what he wants out of Curry this preseason. "I want him to shoot the open ones. I don't want him to shoot the covered ones, but at the beginning of the year, he was passing up the open ones. I couldn't shoot at all, and I would have shot those."

So far, two games into the preseason, Curry hasn't had any issues consistently attempting and knocking down threes. During Monday night's loss to the Toronto Raptors, Curry was one of few Sixers that played well as he collected 14 points. Six of those points came from his three attempts from deep.

On Thursday, he didn't slow down. In fact, Curry ramped up his production from beyond the arc. In 21 minutes on the floor, Curry attempted nine total shots. All but one of his shots were three-pointers.

After drilling four of his eight three-point attempts, Curry finished Thursday night's win over the Raptors with 15 total points. "When you have a cannon like that, let it go," said Rivers. "We say that to all our guys who can shoot like that."

Although Rivers acknowledged it might be difficult for the Sixers to find open threes as consistently as they did last year without their top playmaker Ben Simmons on the floor, he wants to make sure they don't land in any situations where they are trading twos for threes in a sharpshooter's league -- especially when they have somebody like Seth Curry on the roster.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.