MILWAUKEE–Philadelphia 76ers forward Tobias Harris has had to change his game in so many ways since joining the Sixers at the 2019 deadline.

When he was first acquired by Philadelphia, Harris was looked at to provide scoring. Then they lost JJ Redick and Jimmy Butler in free agency and he was then asked to be an elite 3-point shooter and a closer. The following season, he had to be the No. 2 scorer.

In the 2021-22 season, he began the year as a ball-handler and the No. 2 guy before the emergence of Tyrese Maxey and the acquisition of James Harden turned him into a catch-and-shoot player.

It has been just a little over a year since Harden joined the Sixers and Harris has fully accepted that he is now the No. 4 option and he has morphed into a 3-and-D player. He is shooting 38.3% from deep in the 2022-23 season and he has changed games in a big way on the defensive end.

Harris sat down with Sixers Wire to discuss his offensive role, the team’s title chances, what PJ Tucker has brought to the table, and other topics.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: It's been a year since James got here and you've had to change your role a bit. Where do you feel like you're coming along?

Tobias: “Just being patient on a night-to-night basis. Just taking advantage and really just being efficient with, offensively, whatever looks are there and then defensively expanding my game to guard some of the other team’s best players. Sometimes it’s point guards, just trying to make my impact on the game outside of just the offensive end. I think that’s been the biggest growth for me and just trying to do whatever I can as presented to help us win.”

Q: On the offensive end, you are more than just a catch-and-shoot guy. Do you feel that sometimes people forget that you can do other things on the offensive end?

Tobias: “Without a doubt. That’s been like my whole career. Just being an all-around offensive player. With the team that we have, the talent that we have, there’s just not that many—there’s less opportunities. The ball is in James’ hands, Joel’s (Embiid) hands for the majority part of the game. So we got to figure out ways to find a rhythm, find a balance for me, personally. So sometimes that is just catch and shooting. That’s been an adjustment for me like I’ve said from the beginning, but it’s something I’m continuing to learn and game by game just continue to try to monitor and find out. Every game is a different opportunity for me to try to expand on it and grow with it really.”

Q: That takes a lot of maturity to take a step back in order to help the team win. Where does that come from?

Tobias: “The other way would be to just fight it and say ‘Oh no, I can score in all these different moments’ and that would just lead to me just having an attitude and actually being counterproductive for the group. So it’s kind of like, you don’t really have much option. It’s like figure it out. Figure a way to be an impact on the team and learn from that and go with it. So for me, it’s like figuring out ways—it’s another growth of my game. My whole career, I’ve shot 3s, but they were in rhythm and stuff and now it’s shooting 3s like last-second shot clock 3s like kind of catching the ball out of nowhere, boom, like raise it up and letting it fly. So I think that’s something that I just kind of embrace and say, ‘Hey, this is your role right now. You just have to make it make the best of it and figure out ways to be productive in it.’”

Q: What is it about this group that gives you the confidence that you will get over the hump and go get a title?

Tobias: “I just think our star talent in James, Joel, Tyrese, we have a lot of depth on our team. A lot of scorers, a lot of guys who can contribute. We’re close. We got to continue to figure it out, but we’ve got the right pieces to make something happen. For us, it’s just figuring it out and rolling with it.”

Q: What about the past failures could you learn from and help fuel this run you guys are on?

Tobias: “Obviously, we need to be healthy. We need everybody to just buy in and understand that for us to be at our best, we have to really have great chemistry, right? We have to be able to have that basketball moving around, to have guys stepping up and being comfortable and be in a rhythm. We got to defend our tails off. So all those things add up to contribute to winning.”

Q: After the loss to Miami in 2022, you mentioned a lack of mental toughness. After a loss to New York earlier, you mentioned basketball maturity. How do you improve on that?

Tobias: “Just mentality. Mentality, heart, passion, will. That’s really where it stems from. It’s a mentality and understanding like it’s bigger than each individual and ourselves and understanding it’s gonna take a whole team, every single guy, 1 through 15 that’s on the bench, all our staff everything so it’s just mentality.”

[lawrence-related id=63974]

Q: When people talk about PJ Tucker, it's always 'Oh, he isn't scoring enough'. What's his impact beyond the box score?

Tobias: “When anybody talks about the points scored is an idiot just because there isn’t much opportunity for him to go out and average eight or nine points. The man shoots the ball two times a game so that’s a (expletive) claim. He’s a guy who’s a winner and every big game we’re in, those big teams and games that we play that felt like playoff environments, he’s out there making an impact. That’s where his game shines the most and also, just him being a vocal guy on this team, a leader, he’s the anchor to our defense, he can guard 1 through 5, he sacrifices offensively. This is not like when he was in Miami. He had the ball touch his hands a lot more in the offense as well, but he just does all the little things to help you win. He wants to win so bad and he has won and he has experience as well.”

Q: You've always been a leader on this team. What's it been like to integrate the new guy like Jalen McDaniels and Dewayne Dedmon and getting them up to speed?

Tobias: “I just make sure that their head is right and they understand that this is a full picture type thing. We need everybody to contribute and just get them up to speed on what we do, how we can be successful, what we’re lacking right now, and ways that we can be better but for our team, the biggest thing is mentality of understanding knowing that we can win.”

Story originally appeared on Sixers Wire