The Sixers suffered a putrid loss to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night. That’s a young squad that plays hard, but isn’t very good, so you’d think a team like Philadelphia should be able to put them away.

Alas, they did not, scoring just 15 points in the fourth quarter and blowing another late lead. After the game, this quote was widely circulated and perhaps taken out of context:

People took that to mean that it was James Harden doing the struggling, or that he was the reason for the loss, but it seems Doc was talking more about Harden taking the volume of the shots in those specific lineups, so the bench didn’t have much of an opportunity with the ball in the first place.

Makes more sense if you restructure that specific sentence like this:

first interpretation: “I think during that stretch it was more James (struggling) than them, so…”

vs.

second interpretation: “I think during that stretch it was more James (running the offense and taking the shots), than them, so…”

Now, if Harden was running the offense and taking the shots at that point, and wasn’t hitting those shots, you can probably extrapolate within reason here to say that he does indeed deserve a large portion of the blame for the loss. With Rivers, who doesn’t often take accountability, the quote understandably got a little borked, and most people thought he was putting the L squarely on Harden’s shoulders, which would seem like a risky move considering he’s your new superstar and you want things to be cool with him. We’re trying to keep this thing cohesive and positive going into the playoffs as Sixers fans pre-emptively dangle one leg off the bandwagon.

Harden finished with 18 points on 4-15 shooting while going 2-9 from three. He turned the ball over three times but grabbed nine rebounds and tossed seven assists while snagging two steals and getting a block. He finished the month of March shooting just 39% from the field and 31% from three despite doing his typical damage at the foul line. He was part of the reason for the loss on Thursday, but the bench did shoot 25% on the night, making just three of their 12 shots. Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris had good shooting nights, but only combined for 19 looks. Embiid was Embiid.

Be it the bench or the staggering setup, something is going to have to change with the second unit arrangement. Either tweak the pairings or try some different looks. It’s gonna be a ROUGH navigation in the playoffs.