PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers walked away with a tough 105-104 win over the Miami Heat in the play-in tournament to earn the No. 7 seed in the East. The Sixers take on the New York Knicks in the first round; the series begins on Saturday.
Coach Nick Nurse pulled an interesting move on Wednesday. He sent Kelly Oubre Jr. in for Tobias Harris at the 4:12 mark of the fourth quarter. The Sixers normally don’t make that move due to Harris’s ability to affect the game in so many ways.
“I thought Tobias was playing fine,” Nurse said after the win. “I thought he played a ton of minutes. I thought he was absolutely tired. That was the only reason why I made that switch and I made the switch back to Kyle (Lowry) with Buddy (Hield). I thought Buddy was playing great and gave us a spark, too, but I thought it was that time in the game where Kyle will usually make a play or two and he did.”
To Nurse’s point, Lowry made big plays down the stretch to help Philadelphia secure the win. Harris played 32:44 on the night, which is just below his season average of 33.8 minutes per game.
Harris struggled a bit: He missed some bunnies and shot 4-for-10 overall for nine points and 10 rebounds. He also air-balled a 3 and wasn’t able to get into his rhythm. On the flip side, he contributed in the second half to help the rally.
“Just was going with what I thought we needed at the moment,” Nurse added. “I thought Tobias had played his guts out for the entire game. He was just on ‘E’ a little bit.”
Harris played a part in the comeback win. He helped Philadelphia crack the zone defense the Heat employed to slow the Sixers.
“Just figuring out the gaps in the zone and making quicker decisions when they presented,” Harris stated. “I think for us in the first half, we weren’t finding the open gaps and spots where we could finish at so I thought second half, we did a better job of figuring that out and getting to our spots.”
He looks to help the Sixers upset the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. He will just need to be ready for the next opportunity.
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