Sixers praise Tobias Harris for defense on Bulls star DeMar DeRozan
PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers have had a tough time with Chicago Bulls star DeMar DeRozan really in his entire career. DeRozan has been known to have big games against the Sixers and that has been no different in the 2021-22 season.
In the three previous games entering Monday night’s contest, DeRozan was averaging 37.5 points on 56.7% shooting against the Sixers. In Monday’s 121-106 win, Philadelphia held DeRozan to 23 points on 6-for-17 shooting.
With Matisse Thybulle assigned to Zach LaVine, the Sixers turned to Tobias Harris to defend DeRozan and he did as good a job as anybody really could against the Chicago scoring machine.
“Tobias, he shoots 4-for-10, but defensively, he was really good on DeMar,” said James Harden. “Just contesting his shots, just making it real difficult for him. There’s gonna be games like that, man. You gotta find ways to win when we aren’t shooting the ball well and things aren’t going great.”
DeRozan is a tough cover because he doesn’t play like the traditional scorer in today’s NBA. He scores in a lot of different ways without the use of the 3-point shot and he does a good job of getting his shots in any way. Harris got credit from the team for the job that he did.
“It was good, it was exhausting, but I thought Tobias’ just individual D on DeRozan was as good as you’re going to get on DeRozan,” said coach Doc Rivers. “I thought the trapping was really good as well, but it’s exhausting.”
Harris may not have shot the ball well–which is seriously becoming a trend– but he was able to give the team a lift out on the floor. That’s something they will always take.
“We gotta grind games out and we gotta sometimes come back from being down a great amount of points,” Harden added. “You gotta find ways to win and wins like that shows a real testament to our team and things like that are gonna happen in the playoffs.”
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