Doc Rivers suffered his 10th Game 7 loss of his coaching career when the Philadelphia 76ers crumbled to the Boston Celtics on Sunday night, enduring their third consecutive Round 2 playoff exit in the process.
Yet, while blowing a 3-2 lead might warrant some chatter surrounding a possible heading coaching replacement in Philadelphia, Rivers isn’t worried about his job security. The 61-year-old, who abandoned Boston’s rebuild stage in 2013, has since blown seven postseason leads, resulting in excruciating early exits with the Los Angeles Clippers and 76ers.
But again, Jayson Tatum’s 51 points and the sight of the Celtics advancing to the Eastern Conference finals in the building Rivers once called home, wasn’t enough to extract an ounce of doubt from the man himself.
“Yeah. I think I have two years left,” Rivers told reporters postgame about if he plans to coach the 76ers next season, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
In a time when head coaches get fired left and right, sticking by Rivers would be a surprise. The 76ers have miserably underperformed throughout Joel Embiid’s rise from rookie to league MVP, cycling through a series of new faces while remaining stagnant through it all in always coming up short in the playoffs.
The Milwaukee Bucks recently fired Mike Budenholzer after falling to the No. 8-seeded Miami Heat in the first round, just two years after their first NBA title in 50 years. Then, the Phoenix Suns did the same, dismissing Monty Williams from their head coach’s seat after suffering a second-round elimination from the Denver Nuggets, just two years removed from their surprise NBA Finals appearance.
While talented, the 76ers have been reduced to the punching bag of the East, seemingly always expected to fall flat on their faces when the lights shine bright. However, that’s also on par with the trend Rivers has continuously followed since departing Boston and failing at the helm wherever he’s gone.
