Doc Rivers, Matisse Thybulle headline frustrating final 76ers presser ahead of playoffs
The Philadelphia 76ers ended the 2021-22 regular season on a high note, beating the Detroit Pistons 118-106 in South Philadelphia to lock up the fourth seed and will now face the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Doc Rivers and company met with the media after the game to for the last press conference of the regular season.
Of course, that didn’t go as smoothly as you would have thought it would. Last night after the Pistons game, Doc Rivers was asked a few questions about his bench rotations. Most notably his decision to play washed backup bigs like Deandre Jordan over former NBA G League MVP Paul Reed.
It should be no surprise that he didn’t like the questions and responded like a total asshole to Derek Bodner.
Doc Rivers Post Game Press Conference
For context, Reed put on a show last night against the Pistons, scoring 25 points on 12-of-14 shooting from the floor, adding six rebounds, two assists, four steals and a black to the stat sheet.Â
Reed is an exciting young player who plays with the energy level that a team should want coming off the bench. However, Doc Rivers has never, and apparently still does not believe, BBall Paul is a better option at the backup center position than his two lifeless veterans in Jordan and Millsap.
Regardless, Rivers decided to take the rude and downright condescending route when answering a few very fair questions from Bodner. Credit to him and Kyle Neubeck for not backing down either.
I can’t imagine being subjected to listening to Rivers’ ramblings, fully knowing at least half of what he’s saying is bullshit. But when you finally call him on it, he denies wrongdoing and treats you like schoolchildren.
The media members he targets for the rants are some of the least-controversial people. Of course, we have assholes in Philadelphia sports media, but Rivers never snaps at them.
In my personal experience, nobody that acts like that has any idea what they’re doing. We haven’t had many coaches in Philly that know what they’re doing, but at least they weren’t total assholes about it.
The fact is that Doc hasn’t won a title since 2009, and it took four total Hall of Famers to do it. The Phillies made the playoffs more recently than that. And guess what. If Rivers doesn’t figure out how to close out games in the postseason, the Phils will make the playoffs again before he ever wins another one.
Talk about a tone-setter for the playoffs, am I right?
BUT WAIT.
Matisse Thybulle was up next:
Oh, Christ.
As soon as I saw this on the postgame coverage, I was scared to check the timeline. I already saw the reaction to Thybulle missing the Toronto game due to his vaccination status, and last night proved to throw more gas on the fire.
As disappointed as I am that he won’t be able to play in games 3 and 4 of the first-round series, I have to say he probably spoke about it better than any other athlete.
The aggressive slander on the timeline from fans is. I know they have to “keep the same energy” they had for Kyrie, but my god. The number of people that went from sexually objectifying Matisse Thybulle to ripping him to shreds in 24 hours was a sight to see.
Regardless of how you feel about either Doc or Matisse, you must admit this is classic 76ers playoff basketball. It wouldn’t be our team without a completely unnecessary circus 24/7
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