Tobias Harris, Sixers discuss rough start shooting the ball in Game 1 win
The Philadelphia 76ers were able to come away with a 125-118 Game 1 win over the Washington Wizards to begin their 2021 playoff journey, but it was definitely a tough one to start.
The Sixers shot just 46.2% from the floor in the first half and they were an ugly 3-for-17 from deep while the Wizards shot 53.1% from the floor and they knocked down four of their 10 attempts from deep. The only reason why the Sixers only trailed by one at halftime was due to the stellar play of Tobias Harris.
While the Sixers missed a lot of wide-open looks, Philadelphia got a huge lift from Harris who had 28 points and he shot 12-for-19 at the half to keep Philadelphia in it. They eventually pulled away for a 125-118 win on Sunday.
“I thought as a team, we didn’t make as many shots as we wanted to, especially early in the first half,” said Harris. “The biggest thing is we had enough mental focus to really come out in the second half and defend and try to get as many stops as we could and let that fuel our offense and we found the good rhythm. We know that’s the blueprint to our success and then in Game 2, we got to bring even more of that.”
On top of that, the Sixers only had Joel Embiid for 10:25 in the first half as he got into a lot of early foul trouble. That is a big reason why the Sixers did not have much offensive success in the first half of Game 1. The team would have been in deep trouble if not for Harris’ play.
“When he went down there, I looked at it kind of like how we’re looking at the whole year when Joel when down with an injury and what I needed to do for our team to win games at that point,” he stated. “He goes out with three fouls and it was just the same mentality of alright we got to get this thing rolling and opportunities were there for me to be aggressive and get to my spots and get the shots I want to get.”
Danny Green was one player who got into a big rhythm in the second half as he knocked down two triples and he had some big plays in order for Philadelphia to pull out the win.
“It’s the playoffs,” said Green. “Everybody’s excited, the adrenaline’s going so it takes a little while to settle in, but I got to give them credit. They did a good job of pushing the pace and making us play in the half-court. They played some zone, we weren’t able to get out and run.”
The zone defense did, once again, hurt the Sixers in this one. They were not able to figure it out and they had a tough time generating any types of good looks out of it.
In the second half, they were able to get out and run in transition a bit more and that allowed them to get into an offensive rhythm.
“We needed to get more stops,” Green added. “A lot of our best offense is transition and we didn’t get as much transition as we would like to. So that’s why we’re gonna get as many 3s or open looks but, it’s the first game. We played in a week, get a little rust off, but hopefully, we come back, get some better stops defensively, get out in transition and run. Find an open man and shot better the next game.”
Game 2 is Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center.
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