The Philadelphia 76ers received some tough news on Monday shortly before their matchup with the Portland Trail Blazers. They knew they were going to be missing Joel Embiid, but they did not expect to be down Tobias Harris as well.
Harris was ruled out due to him having to enter the league’s health and safety protocols and they were then left scrambling. The Sixers were still able to come away with a 113-103 win over the Blazers led by a solid team effort.
Afterward, coach Doc Rivers was asked about when he learned about Harris’ absence and what the next steps were.
“About 40 minutes,” Rivers stated. “I don’t even know yet exactly. Honestly, it happened right before. We just met as coaches who to start and I have yet to talk to Tobias. I’m gonna do that right after this and figure out what’s going on.”
The team did start Furkan Korkmaz in place of Harris and he delivered 15 points with eight coming late when the Sixers needed it the most. It was an impressive win for Philadelphia down one of their best perimeter scorers as they had seven guys score in double figures led by Seth Curry’s 23.
“I found out probably, I don’t know, 45 minutes before the game,” said Curry. “For me, I approach it the same way. Just be aggressive, attack when I have the opportunities, and that’s pretty much it. Try not to put too much pressure on yourself and just go out there and play the same way.”
Georges Niang played a big role in the win as he scored 21 points off the bench, with 16 coming after halftime. Without Harris, somebody needed to produce and he was a big help in that area.
“We kind of have a next man mentality,” said Niang. “This was a game where we knew we had to come in and win. Especially when it’s at home against a west coast team, you definitely want to get that win. I think everybody stepped up and contributed and this was a big team win for us.”
Now, the Sixers must wait to see what happens with Harris. The league will decide how many more games he will have to miss, if any, and the team will have to go from there.
If they can get a performance like this from the rest of the roster, it would soften the blow a bit.
“It’s a team win,” Rivers added. “We weren’t going to beat them if it wasn’t a team win. They have better individuals as far as Dame (Damian Lillard) and (C.J.) McCollum so we knew going into it, but our guys accept that. They understand that. I thought we did the simplest thing you should do in basketball, we passed to the open man. We kept doing it all game.”
Their next game is Wednesday at home against the Chicago Bulls.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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