Doc Rivers Airs PJ Tucker’s Message to 76ers After Loss to Spurs

Last season, Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers had a consistent message to his team when they played opponents beneath them in the standings: Respect your opponent.

While the San Antonio Spurs were the team with the winning record on Saturday night in their matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers, the home team was still heavily favored to win based on their talent.

De’Anthony Melton revealed the message remained the same on Saturday morning.

“That’s an NBA team with... I think they are 2-0? Something like that,” said Melton. “We know they will come out there and play hard, as they should. So, we should do the same thing and match their energy and have a dogfight out there no matter what.”

The Sixers didn’t look ready to engage in a “dogfight” with a young and rebuilding Spurs team. While Philadelphia got off to a decent start, they trailed by three points going into halftime.

Coming out for the third quarter, San Antonio continued expanding its lead and were even up double-digits at a point. Eventually, the Spurs closed out Saturday’s matchup with an upset victory after taking down the Sixers 114-105.

After the game, Doc Rivers claimed the obvious; The Sixers are not ready to win yet.

“We’re not ready yet,” said the head coach. “Honestly, we’re just not ready to win yet, and you can feel that. We got a lot of work to do.”

While Saturday’s defeat was widely considered a bad loss considering the strength of the opponent, the Sixers’ first two losses were close battles against Eastern Conference contenders. Perhaps, the Sixers took the Spurs lightly as a result of the outcome of the first two games, which caused Philly veteran PJ Tucker to send a message in the locker room after Saturday’s game.

“It’s almost like we played these first two games hard, competed, and now we can win some games,” Rivers continued. “You still got to go out and earn the game. You know, (PJ Tucker) was yelling that after the game, and he was right. No one’s just gonna give you a win. You have to go get, and you have to do it every night. You can’t pick and choose when we’re gonna show up right now, and that’s what we’re doing.”

With a loss on Saturday, the Sixers dropped to 0-3 on the year. They’ll return to the court on Monday night to face the Indiana Pacers. Desperate for a win, the Sixers will need to take on Tucker’s advice and play hard no matter which opponent is in front of them.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.