Have the Heat Put Sixers Coach Doc Rivers on the Hot Seat?
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The Miami Heat had their second dominant win against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night.
Sixers leader Joel Embiid has been ruled out of Game 3 due to his injury and could possibly miss Game 4 as well. With this loss, coach Doc Rivers is officially on the hot seat as the Sixers’ head coach.
With the addition of superstar James Harden, the Sixers were placed with championship aspirations. However, the absence of Embiid for this crucial matchup has made those expectations bleaker, and is now turning the attention to Rivers.
Rivers’ track record in the postseason tells a grim tale. He has blown three 3-1 leads in a best-of-seven-game series, the most in NBA history. Rivers has lost seven consecutive Game 7s as a head coach, which is tied for the longest losing streak.
Fans even joked about the possibility of the Sixers blowing their 3-0 game lead against the Toronto Raptors. The Sixers did end up winning that series, but not until giving up two wins against the Raptors before moving on.
Furthermore, Embiid was still playing in Game 6, even though the Sixers were up 29 points with four minutes left. This is when Embiid got injured, which has sidelined him for the first three games of this series. This decision by Rivers could be put into consideration when discussing his future with the team. When questioned why Embiid was still in the game, Rivers said that he does not regret his decision.
“I’m not upset that he was in,” said to reporters. “You can make that a big deal if you want. But just go look at every team, and every game, and their guys are in until about the 4, 3-minute mark. That’s what it is.”
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Jayden Armant is a contributor to Inside The Heat. He is a student at Howard University. He can be reached at jayden.armant@bison.howard.edu or follow him on Twitter @jaydenarmant.
