NEW YORK–When the Philadelphia 76ers were eliminated by the Miami Heat in Round 2 of the 2022 playoffs, the buzzwords after the elimination were “mental toughness”. It was something that was pointed out by the players after the Heat went into Philadelphia and eliminated the Sixers.
In order to win in the NBA, teams have to be able to withstand adversity and be able to battle through nights when things aren’t going their way in order to win games. While the words “mental toughhe Sixers acknowledge that they still have some work to do after blowing a 21-point lead in a loss to the New York Knicks on Sunday.
This is the second time in less than a week that the Sixers blew a 21-point lead and lost. They fell to the Orlando Magic in a similar fashion on Jan. 30.
“I think, for one, it’s kind of like human nature sometimes to just think that you can coast at times when you have a lead a little bit, but for us as a group, we can’t think that way,” said Tobias Harris. “I think we have a mature group, but it’s basketball maturity as well of understanding we’re up 20, we should win by 35. We should dominate.”
The bench unit struggled in Sunday’s win as coach Doc Rivers believed that the group thought it would be easy for them to enter the game and repeat the same success the starting unit had. That turned out not to be the case and there needs to be a toughness and understanding that they need to be better in that area.
“It happens,” said Rivers. “They’re watching the first group score every time. We were getting layups, wide-open shots, and I think they came in and thought that’s the way they were gonna play. You can tell when your group comes in and thinks offense and I thought that’s what we did. So you lose the game when that happens and they know that. I just told them emotionally and mentally, that’s our next step as a team.”
This is the 3rd time the 76ers have blown a 20-point lead in the regular season under Doc Rivers.
Two of the three losses have come in the last week, with Philly blowing 21-pt leads on Sunday against the Knicks and last Monday against the Magic. pic.twitter.com/lBEgADeiQv
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) February 6, 2023
The Sixers made moves in the offseason, such as bringing in PJ Tucker, to help in this situation. He offered up his own take on mental toughness.
“I don’t know if it’s a certain thing you can do to actually—like if that was the case, everybody would do it,”…
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