While the Philadelphia 76ers as a team had received their fair share of criticism over the past few weeks, one guy who received it the most was Tobias Harris. The Sixers forward was mired in a tough shooting slump before showing some signs in the second game of the road trip and then breaking out on Sunday in a 114-95 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Harris had 27 points on an efficient 12-for-14 shooting and helped put the final nail in the coffin in the fourth quarter after Cleveland was looking to make one final push. Coach Brett Brown did not want to insert Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid back into the game and he trusted Harris to close it out.
Brown stated:
He was our bell-ringer tonight. When you’re looking up and you’re up 25 points going into the fourth, I don’t want to play Joel and I really don’t want to play Ben Simmons. To Cleveland’s credit, they cut it to 17…15 and we went to Tobias two or three times in a row. I think he personally went on an 8-0 run and kind of moved the game away from that danger zone that it felt like it was getting to. You’re always nervous about playing the heavyweights minutes in a game that you think you should close out. He came in and sure made it a lot easier to justify the decision to not go with Joel, as an example in the fourth period.
This is the type of play the Sixers were expecting with Harris when they brought him back on a lucrative deal in the offseason. He has the talent to play as well as he did on Sunday and it’s all about putting it together now. If he can build off of this, then the Sixers are really going to be in a good place. [lawrence-related id=19383,19377,19371]