When the Philadelphia 76ers acquired Tobias Harris from the Los Angeles Clippers at the February deadline in 2019, they were expecting that he would come in and provide good offensive production from the wing. They then doubled down on their hopes by re-signing him to a max contract over the summer.
After the performance he put on in a win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday night, the Sixers liked what they saw from their small forward. Harris had 26 points on 10-for-22 and he was aggressive from the jump as he gave the team a big boost to start.
After recently saying he would like Harris to have a scorer’s mentality, coach Brett Brown was happy with how he has performed on offense.
“There was a funny part of the game where he just went bucket, bucket and it spun out into 18 points. In general, he is in a good place offensively,” Brown said. “That structure in his world is appropriate and I think he’s learning how to use it. We are playing well around him, off him. He’s had a really good mindset lately to score”
Harris entered the night averaging 21.2 points and shooting 40% from deep over a stretch of 12 games since his miserable 0-for-18 stretch from deep in the early part of November. He believes he is finally finding his role in the offense and it’s the most comfortable he has felt since being acquired by Philadelphia.
“Yes. 100%,” confirmed Harris. “I think I’m in a really good rhythm of just going out and embracing and feeding off my teammates and getting into a flow. I pride myself on playing in the flow of the game. I’ve done a really good job of being able to do that and being able to have guys on the team look for me in different spots and get me going. Coach has done a really good job of having that rhythm come our way a little bit faster.”
Philadelphia will now move on to their next challenge on Tuesday when they welcome in the Denver Nuggets looking to avenge an early-season loss on the road where they let one slip away. [lawrence-related id=20933,20924,20917]