Harris becoming a big shot at the right time for the Sixers
PHILADELPHIA » Just about a year ago, Tobias Harris was finally clearing his spot among the cream of NBA scorers.
His three-point shot improved, his mid-range game mesmerizing, the versatile forward was producing points with such regularity that he seemed destined to represent the Los Angeles Clippers in the All-Star Game.
Then, the changes happened. For some reason, he would become a celebrated All-Star snub.
Then he would be traded to the Sixers, where he would find himself surrounded by so many potential scorers that none of them would really be comfortable.
Then, there was a secondround postseason exit.
Then, there would be freeagency and a massive contract.
Then, there would be the demand: Be that scorer again. It’s happening. Sunday, Harris scored a quietly efficient 26 points, shooting 10-for-22 overall and 4-for-8 from the arc in a telling 110-104 victory over the Toronto Raptors. For Harris, it continued a recent trend that included a 22-point night against Indiana, a 26-point drop on Utah and a 33-point outburst against Washington.
He had just 15 points Saturday against Cleveland, but that was in 22 minutes of a game the Cavaliers barely conceded to play, allowing Brett Brown to rest many of his regulars.
But the Harris the Sixers enjoyed Sunday was what they expected when they acquired him from L.A., and then when they gave him a $180,000,000 contract in the last offseason.
“I thought I was in a good rhythm the whole game,” said Harris, who is averaging 23.3 points in his last six games. “They showed a little bit of zone. That altered us a little bit. But overall, they are a team that likes to double-team and likes to scramble off. So if you make the extra pass, you are going to get a good look. We had guys making shots and guys making plays out of that. That was the key focus for us.”
Fundamentally reliant on returning All-Stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, the Sixers are set up for Harris to become the third star necessary for any team considering championship contention. Though he had shown some early inconsistency, his recent scoring has been vital and settling and a major reason why the Sixers have won six of their last seven.
With that, he is feeling more comfortable at the offensive end than he had been at any time with the Sixers.
“Yeah,” he said, “100 percent. I think I am in a really good rhythm, just going out and embracing and feeding off my teammates and getting into a flow. I pride myself on going with the flow of the game and I thought I have been doing a really good job of being able to do that and being able to really help guys on the team look for me in different spots and get me going.
“Coach has done a really good job of having the rhythm come my way a little bit faster.”
Harris averaged 20.9 points for the Clippers last season, dipped slightly to 18.9 for the Sixers and then dropped to 15.5 in the playoffs. He hopes to have learned something from that postseason, which included a loss to the Raptors in the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals.
“It’s not necessarily what I learned from them, but from the whole playoffs in general,” he said. “It was the attention to detail. Every possession matters. Every possession can be an accumulation of what goes down at the end of the game. So I think that was the biggest thing for myself, and for the team, to take away from that series.”
As expected, the Raptors collapsed around Embiid Sunday and applied added pressure on Simmons. But the Sixers have been enjoying substantial scoring from that third source, the way a contending team must.
“There was a funny part of the game and he just came in and went bucket-bucket,” Brown said. “Then the lead spun out to 15, 16 points again. I think in general, he is in a good place offensively. I think that the structure in his world is appropriate. He is learning how to use it. We are playing well around him and off him. But he is having a really good mindset lately to score.”