PHILADELPHIA — It took all of 61 seconds in the third quarter Monday night for Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers to decide he had seen enough.
After watching his team fail to properly run a play he drew up coming out of the halftime break — which followed a lackadaisical overall performance in the first half of Game 2 of its first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets — Rivers let his players know how he felt.
«Cursing us out,» star James Harden said matter-of-factly, followed by a laugh, when asked what Rivers said in that huddle. «That's it. Just cursing us out.
»The first possession, we didn't run a play that he drew up, for whatever reason. But we got it right."
Harden was right — the 76ers looked like a totally different team after they left that huddle, outscoring the Nets 24-12 over the final 11 minutes of the third quarter to retake the lead for good. Tyrese Maxey score 33 points and Joel Embiid dominated with 20 points, 19 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 blocks as the 76ers claimed a 96-84 victory and a 2-0 lead as the series shifts to Brooklyn for Game 3 on Thursday.
«I thought we wasted the whole first half,» Rivers said. «Literally just running random [stuff], not trusting our sets.
»First play, we didn't run it. So I thought we needed to talk about it. And, you know, give them credit. From that point on, I thought our execution was unbelievable."
Over the rest of the third quarter, the 76ers simply wore down the Nets. Brooklyn pretty successfully executed its game plan overall, getting up 42 3-point attempts — Jacque Vaughn said pregame that he hoped his Nets would shoot at least 40 — and managed to play the possession game to a draw by forcing Philadelphia into 19 turnovers that became 22 Brooklyn points.
But
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