Doc Rivers, Sixers explain what went wrong in Game 4 loss to Raptors

TORONTO–The Philadelphia 76ers had a chance to close things out on Saturday against the Toronto Raptors and move on to Round 2, but they couldn’t get into an offensive rhythm and they fell on the road 110-102.

Philadelphia shot 42.5% from the floor and they were 13-for-31 from deep compared to 42% for the Raptors and they were 8-for-34 from deep. A big factor in this game was Toronto playing their style of basketball as they grabbed 13 offensive rebounds and they forced Philadelphia into 16 turnovers which led to 22 points for the Raptors.

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This was the type of game that the Sixers are going to look back on and realize that this is the playoffs and they had to be much better in this closeout situation.

“I just didn’t think we deserved to win. Our guys have been great, but we weren’t good tonight. That little mental part of the game where you have to come and play, I didn’t think we had that tonight. I thought they played harder, tougher, faster, more physical, and good things come to the energy. We were so sloppy execution-wise, it’s amazing, it felt like when we actually executed what we wanted, we got a great shot, I did think we missed some shots tonight and that’s fine because it’s always gonna be that make/miss, but we just made so many mistakes. You can’t win an NBA regular-season game with the mistakes that we made let alone a playoff game. That’s a good lesson for us.”

“I thought defensively, we weren’t bad. We were just so bad offensively tonight.”

“On the offensive end, honestly, there were too many empty possessions. Turning the ball over, I thought the first two games, the most, is when we’re able to drive and kick, and get open looks. We started getting it early in the game and it kinda faded out through there and I think that allowed their defense to collapse in and that allowed us to become a little bit predictable as well. We gotta stick to what’s been working and that’s making them make long closeouts and putting the ball back on the floor and driving in the paint and kicking out for open looks so that’s something we can get better at.”

“We had opportunities to take advantage of and we didn’t. A lot of opportunities to capitalize on and take the lead and push it up from there. We just didn’t do it. It’s not about anybody else, but ourselves, we need to focus on things we can control and I think we’ll be in a great position.”

“They played harder. They played way harder. You can tell, like we said, they were gonna come out and play extremely desperate, and play with a physical mindset, but we just gotta be better and we will be better.”

“We missed a lot of wide-open shots. I had a bunch of turnovers, as a team we did too, the ball didn’t move as well as it has been moving. We know what we gotta do, honestly, take care of the ball, no offensive rebounds, and just play together. I thought tonight, the ball was sticking a little bit more than usual, so we just gotta get back to doing what worked for those three games that we won.”