Tobias Harris Steals the Show for 76ers
Tobias Harris Steals the Show as the 76ers Take a Playoff Lead who made the greatest impact in Game 3 of the team’s first-round playoff series against the Nets.
Nor was it the team’s most dominant player, Joel Embiid, who missed the game with knee tendinitis. Or the sharpshooter J.J. Redick. Or the four-time All Star Jimmy Butler.
It was Tobias Harris, the oft-traded, oft-underappreciated power forward who has an ego compact enough to fit inside his white headband — with room to spare.
“Tobias was our bell-ringer tonight,” 76ers Coach Brett Brown said Thursday after the 131-115 win gave Philadelphia a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-seven series, which resumes Saturday in Brooklyn.
Harris finished with playoff career highs of 29 points and 16 rebounds and made all six of his 3-pointers. At 6-foot-9, he owned the perimeter against the Nets’ smaller guards, and his work on defense was just as effective.
The Nets are the feel-good story of the postseason, given the expectations for them last fall. But after losses in the last two games, it would seem that chemistry, scrappiness and heart go only so far against a Philadelphia lineup with the most talent outside Golden State.
Harris, who is from Dix Hills on Long Island, was the final piece of a Sixers team assembled to make a deep playoff run. In early February, amid the best season of his career, Harris was traded from the Los Angeles Clippers. He could have signed an $80 million contract extension with the Clippers in the last off-season but decided to gamble on himself instead. He elected to play out his final year and become an unrestricted free agent this summer in hopes of a max contract and some stability.
In 27 regular-season games for Philadelphia, Harris averaged 18.2 points, tying with Jimmy Butler for second on the 76ers’ scoring list, behind Joel Embiid, who averaged 27.5.CreditChris Szagola/Associated Press
Having been traded five times in eight seasons, Harris would like to be able to drop off his dry cleaning, then wake up in the same city to pick it up. At 26, after an All-Star-caliber season, he is looking for a home. That might even be Philadelphia.
He averaged 20 points and 7.9 rebounds this season in a total of 82 games with the Clippers and Sixers. In 27 regular-season games for Philadelphia, Harris averaged 18.2 points, tying him with Butler for second on the 76ers’ scoring list, behind Embiid, who averaged 27.5.
For Game 4, the 76ers may still be without Embiid, which means that they will again need balanced scoring from the rest of their talented cast.
“I felt good,” Harris said. “I just came in knowing with Joel down, it was a big scoring loss we had out there. I had to be aggressive from the start. I got some good looks throughout the game. I was able to let it fly, and it felt good for it to go in.”
“It was a big game personally for myself and for the team, too,” he added.
Beyond basketball, Harris co-stars in the best buddy movie in the N.B.A., known as the Bobi + Tobi Show. In 2016, Harris and Boban Marjanovic, a 7-foot-3 Serbian center, developed a close bond while playing for the Detroit Pistons. They were then traded to the Clippers for Blake Griffin in January 2018. About a year later, they became a package deal headed to Philadelphia.
The Clippers produced three web episodes of the “Bobi + Tobi Show”focused on the pair’s friendship and foibles. They took a SoulCycle class together. They attempted a dance lesson. The fun continued in Philadelphia, where a TV station did a quiz show segment with them, focusing on trivia about their new city. Neither could pronounce “Schuylkill.”
In Game 3, Marjanovic played the sidekick during Harris’s star turn. He came off the bench and split time with Greg Monroe, who had replaced Embiid in the starting lineup.
Monroe and Marjanovic combined for 43 minutes and 21 of the Sixers’ 54 rebounds. With Harris defending on the perimeter, the load was lighter on the big men in the paint, though Marjanovic fouled out with about seven minutes left in the game.
