Philadelphia 76ers: Can James Harden handle Doc Rivers’ criticism?

The Philadelphia 76ers are in a bad place at the end of this regular season. It’s one thing to lose games to the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks as they are some of the elite teams in the NBA. It’s another to be defeated by the Detriot Pistons who currently have the second worst record in the Eastern Conference standings at 21-56.

The Sixers fell to the Pistons 94-102 and a big reason why was due to the late game run by the Pistons. However, that’s not the only issue that the 76ers had in this game. No blame can be put on Joel Embiid who finished with 37 points and 15 rebounds. Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris had solid games shooting from the field while ending with 13 and 14 points respectively.

The issue was James Harden who had 18 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists, but he only shot 4-15 from the field, 2-9 from deep, and 8-9 from the foul line. It’s simply unacceptable for Harden to produce like this and head coach Doc Rivers called him out on it.

Can Harden handle being called out by the Philadelphia 76ers’ head coach?

After the game, Rivers gave the following quote per Jack Maloney of CBSSports.com.

"“Well, [the bench] didn’t struggle,…They didn’t get a lot of shots in their defense. I think during that stretch, it was more James than them. So you know, yeah, it’s just a tough night.”"

There are two things to take away from this quote. Rivers was protecting his bench which only combined for eight points on 12 shot attempts. In that respect, Rivers is spot on in the fact that the bench isn’t getting involved. Considering the fact that players like Georges Niang, Shake Milton, and Furkan Korkmaz have shown to be spark plugs off the bench, not getting them many shot attempts is an issue.

The second part of this quote is also spot on. When Harden has been in with the second unit as of late, he has resorted back to his Houston Rockets days where he would dominate the ball. The problem is that he’s not the same player he was then and can’t play the same way he use to.

Rivers had every right to call out Harden publicly. Rivers is a calculated coach who has dealt with his fair share of veteran players and he usually knows how to push the right buttons to motivate them.

However, Harden isn’t like Kevin Garnett or Chris Paul. He hasn’t done the best when there’s been adversity within a locker room. Just ask Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant his most recent teammates on the Brooklyn Nets.

Hopefully, Harden takes this constructive criticism in stride and does better. However, the Philadelphia 76ers head coach is taking a risk by calling out the former MVP publicly like this.