As one of 10 current head coaches who played in the NBA, 76ers coach Doc Rivers has experienced his share of physical battles throughout his career. And, after leading his team to a gritty Game 3 win over the Nets, Rivers took a trip down memory lane while discussing the physical nature of Thursday’s game in Brooklyn.
The Sixers took a commanding 3–0 lead in their first-round series after claiming a 102–97 win that featured a questionable Flagrant 1 foul on Joel Embiid, and late-game ejections for James Harden and Nets center Nic Claxton. After the game, Rivers, a tough, defensive-minded guard during his 14 NBA seasons, was asked if he had ever been a part of game as physical as Game 3 that included multiple ejections.
Needless to say, the 61-year-old was quick to remind NBA fans of how things were during his playing days while offering his take on the chaos that transpired.
“Uh yeah. I played for the Knicks. Go watch Phoenix-Knicks,” Rivers said, per The Athletic.
As Rivers alluded to, the former second-round pick was involved in his share of dust-ups in his day, but the most famous of those run-ins came when Rivers’s Knicks faced the Charles Barkley-led Suns on Mar. 23. 1993.
Rivers, then in the first of his three seasons with New York, got into a bench-clearing brawl after he was fouled hard by Suns star Kevin Johnson shortly before halftime. Rivers and Johnson were two of several players ejected and later fined for that fateful night, along with Suns guard Danny Ainge and Rivers’s teammates John Starks, Anthony Mason and Greg Anthony, who did not play due to an ankle injury.
Reporter: Have you ever seen a game like Sixers-Nets Game 3?
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) April 21, 2023
Doc Rivers: "Yes. I played for the Knicks. Go watch Phoenix-Knicks"pic.twitter.com/XG8F71rvyE
Given the obvious differences of both scenarios, it’s unlikely, much to Rivers’s delight, that any NBA fans, young or old, would compare 76ers-Nets Game 3 to Suns-Knicks ’93. But, for what it’s worth, Thursday’s contest certainly set the benchmark for in-game player discipline for this postseason thus far.
After surviving an all-out battle in Brooklyn, Rivers and the 76ers will look to close out the series with a sweep when they take on the Nets in Game 4 on Saturday.
