Sixers pushed Tobias Harris to be aggressive in road win over Bulls
Tobias Harris is one of the more important pieces on the Philadelphia 76ers in terms of their success and their offense. He has to be the second scorer next to Joel Embiid and that is a responsibility that he has to bear every night.
In Sunday’s 119-108 road win over the Chicago Bulls, Harris had a big game going for 23 points on 10-for-15 shooing with eight rebounds and five assists, but it was a slow start. He didn’t score in the first quarter after taking only two shots and he hesitated on some open looks.
The Bulls were not sending too much pressure toward Harris considering they had to focus so much on Embiid, but he was not taking advantage in the early going. Coach Doc Rivers had to get on him and be sure that he was taking the open looks he has been receiving.
“We talked at halftime I said, ‘Tobias, you’re going downhill but not with power.’” said Rivers. “I remember he had one in the third quarter, I think he got there and then held the ball, passed it out, and I said, go with power and go up and finish through contact and he did that. That’s why he pointed over at the bench and we’re like, it’s there every time you just have to do it. That’s something he did last year and somehow he’s gotten away from it this year.”
The play Rivers is referring to is when Harris went up for an And-1 slam in the third quarter that was a big help in Philadelphia being able to take the lead and run with it.
Another thing that stood out a bit to Rivers was Harris’ two-man game with both Embiid and Andre Drummond. They both were able to play off of Harris and that allowed him to get into a rhythm as well.
“Doing it down the stretch him and Joel playing the two-man game the Drum-Tobias two-man game was really good as well,” Rivers added. “That’s good stuff.”
Harris then followed that up by explaining why running the pick-and-roll game is so helpful for him as it was on Sunday.
“Just evaluating the defense,” said Harris. “Those are always areas that I’ve been in my career that I’m very successful in, the pick-and-rolls, closeouts, I love to play out of both of those. Especially just continuing to build that chemistry of pick-and-roll with myself and Joel. It’s tough for the big to decide where he wanted to go because Joel was doing his thing in the middle of the floor as well so he kind of has to decide which one he wants to take there. We did a good job of just laying off of each other.”
The Sixers will now look to continue receiving aggressive play from Harris when they return home on Tuesday to host the Phoenix Suns.
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