The Philadelphia 76ers entered Saturday night facing a challenge. They had just come off a tough loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday at home and they had to enter this game without the services of Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Seth Curry so they needed somebody to step up and lead the way.
In a blowout win over the Sacramento Kings, that guy was Tobias Harris.
Harris stepped up by pouring in 29 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists to lead the way. He was also efficient shooting 12-for-18 from the floor and 2-for-3 from deep. He came up just two assists shy of his first career triple-double, but he was not worried about that.
“I’m not a triple-double chaser,” said Harris with a laugh. “It’s obviously good to play that type of basketball and to get a victory. I think that’s the biggest thing that I look at, but just a testament to guys making shots out there and us playing in the flow and getting in a rhythm to be able to make those, and have those types of looks so. Just for me, that’s like the evolution of my game as I continue to get better and better so you know it’s a good thing too.”
It was a terrific effort as the Sixers begin a 6-game road trip on Sunday and they needed to get a win on Saturday at home. Down three starters, that can be tough to get done.
(function (d, s, n) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
js = d.createElement(s);
js.className = n;
js.src = “//player.ex.co/player/d8b9c085-4226-44f1-8495-36ad4e2aa62d”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘exco-player’));
“I thought it started before the game,” said coach Doc Rivers. “I made a comment that this was the first toad game of this trip and Tobias echoed it and said guys, this is a road game and I wrote our road trip starts tonight. We don’t care who’s playing, we got to win this game. I just thought, he’s such a pro, but he really set the tone tonight and what his attitude, and then obviously his play, passing and his total play was phenomenal as well.”
For a team that was coming off a tough finish in the loss on Wednesday, it was important that the Sixers come out and get this one. They definitely needed a solid win. It also helped to have two days off for the first time in a while to rest their legs.
“It was good to finally get two days in a row of like an off day,” Harris smiled. “Yesterday, we had a good day of work and then today we go here, we go to New York, so back-to-back and then this is the start of our trip for us really. Just having that mentality and having that focus I think for our team and throughout this whole season.”
For the Sixers to really take the next step, they have to be able to get easy wins such as this one. Even while being so shorthanded, the Sixers needed an effort such as Saturday’s.
“We understand that we have to be a mentally tough team,” Harris finished. “I thought when we played Milwaukee, we kind of lost our mental focus there late in the game and overtime, though we were fatigued, I thought our mental focus wasn’t there. This was a good game to really get ourselves back on track, and to start this trip off the right way.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01eqbvq570kgj8vfs7 image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[lawrence-related id=43773,43769,43766]