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Jalen McDaniels had yet to play a single playoff game in his entire career until the Philadelphia 76ers played their first playoff game against the Brooklyn Nets on April 15. After the Sixers won, McDaniels sounded off on head coach Doc Rivers after Rivers told him he couldn’t make the “little” mistakes he made during Game 1.
“Honestly, the playoffs is way different,” McDaniels told Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire. “Like everybody says, just like the intensity of the game. Everything, every detail matters. I think I did something like little, and Doc (Rivers) was like, ‘Hey, like that can’t happen,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. It can’t’. So it’s locking in. That’s the big thing in the playoffs.”
McDaniels saw 11 minutes of action against the Nets, where he put up five points on two-for-two shooting from the field and four rebounds, all while putting up an overall plus/minus of plus-11.
Doc Rivers Called Jalen McDaniels ‘The Last Piece’
In a conversation with Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Rivers called McDaniels the Sixers’ last piece because he wasn’t one of these “one-way guys” that could potentially harm teams come playoff time.
“The last piece was getting Jalen,” Rivers said. “The regular season and playoffs are so different. You can get away with the one-way guys all year, all regular season.
“Then the playoffs come, and then those guys that can just score or can just defend, they get put on an island and it’s hard for them. It’s hard for the coach. You have to play them in the right space with the right people. It takes a lot of thought into putting one-way guys on the floor.”
Rivers may have been implicating former Sixers wing Matisse Thybulle, who was regarded around the league as an excellent defender but was not much of a factor offensively during his time with the Sixers.
Rivers added that wings like McDaniels and De’Anthony Melton are useful in the playoffs because their ability to play well on both sides of the floor helps the Sixers as a team.
“They can give you both,” he said, “and the more that you have, the better your basketball team is. And I think we’ve accomplished that overall.”
In 24 games with the Sixers, McDaniels averaged 6.7 points and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 48.8% from the field and 40% from three.
Doc Rivers Compares Sixers to His Former Celtics Teams
Before the Sixers started their playoff run, Rivers revealed to Malika Andrews of ESPN that this Sixers team reminds him of the Boston Celtics teams he used to coach back when they had Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen.
“The one thing that’s important to every championship team is that that they have buy-in. Every single guy has bought in. I say this team is the first team I’ve had since Boston that everyone has bought in. There’s no BS. They’re bought in. They want to be a team.”
Rivers coached the Celtics from 2004 to 2013 and won a title with the team in 2008, and made the NBA Finals again in 2010.
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