The Philadelphia 76ers have a spotty record against depleted teams lately and will meet another one Tuesday night when they visit the Toronto Raptors.
Because they had 10 players out because of COVID-19 protocols, the Raptors had only eight players dressed for their 144-99 loss to the host Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday.
Toronto could have some players back Tuesday, but still figure to be undermanned, and the 76ers have not always taken advantage of those situations. Philadelphia has defeats against the Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets and Miami Heat, all of whom were struggling with personnel issues at the time.
The visiting 76ers did take advantage of the depleted Washington Wizards on Sunday with a 117-96 victory led by Joel Embiid’s 36 points and 13 rebounds.
Philadelphia coach Doc Rivers disagrees to the concept that his team is unable to adjust to opponents’ altered rotations.
“It’s really not a trend,” Rivers said. “Whoever said that, I disagree with that. Like the trend has been, we had a lot of guys out. So some of these games you are not going to win. I disagree that that’s a trend. I really do.”
On Sunday, the Wizards were without such players as Bradley Beal, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Raul Neto.
Philadelphia’s Shake Milton, Andre Drummond and Danny Green remained in protocols for the game Sunday. Georges Niang returned to score six points after missing four games.
With his game on Sunday, Embiid joined Allen Iverson as the only Sixers to reach 7,000 points within their first 300 games. Embiid has 7,017 points.
“It’s great,” Embiid said. “But that’s not the focus. The goal is always to get better every single day so we have a chance at winning the championship.”
Philadelphia has won two of three after losing three straight games.
“That’s the one thing you can see all around the league,” Rivers said. “There’s 82 games. Not every game, you’re not going to be perfect. There’s going to be games where you are flat. But if you are full strength and flat, you can win some of those games.”
The four regulars who played Sunday for the Raptors were Dalano Banton, Svi Mykhailiuk, Yuta Watanabe and Chris Boucher. None are regular starters when the Raptors have most of their players available.
Watanabe was the top player for the Raptors with career bests of 26 points and 13 rebounds in 37 minutes.
The four others in the lineup — D.J. Wilson, Juwan Morgan, Tremont Waters and Daniel Oturu — were signed to 10-day, COVID-related hardship contracts.
“We’ll get to know these guys a little bit and see where we can take them,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said.
“We met the four new guys right before the game,” Watanabe said. “Like, we met them on the bus on the way to the arena. And so, when we got here, we went through a couple of plays. And usually in the meeting right before the game we watch the other team’s clips, but coach showed us our clips to make sure everybody (could see) what their game is like.”
Should the game have been played?
“These leaders have to make decisions,” Nurse said before the game. “And you can’t complain about every decision they make. We’ve got to accept them and roll, accept them and go.”
