Tobias Harris dominates Kings in Sixers win

The Sixers beat up the Kings behind a dominant, 37-point outing for Tobias Harris, winning 112-93 over Sacramento in an ESPN showcase game.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— The first sign that it was going to be a Tobias Harris night came at the defensive end, where he found himself matched up with Kings big man Domantas Sabonis. Looking at the Harris matchup as an opportunity, Sabonis tried repeatedly to post up Harris, only to get stonewalled in the paint and stripped of the ball, sending the Sixers on fast breaks the other way. Coming off of a poor defensive game for himself and the whole group, Harris looked out to prove a point.

He made a bigger statement, though, with his play on the other side of the floor. Harris was Philadelphia’s offensive hub early on, crushing the Kings from the mid-post and in. There were some certified mouse-in-the-house moments for Sacramento defenders, who kept slapping down at Harris as a result of his strength advantage. And when he wasn’t taking guys down to the weight room, Harris found a way to win with speed, most notably on a possession where he blew by Chris Duarte and finished through contact for a sick and-one:

Throughout the first half, the Sixers were able to find (and engineer) mismatches for Harris whenever they wanted. Poor De’Aaron Fox got stuck on an island against him over and over again, forcing the Kings to either send help or risk Harris going right through the smaller man. And Harris seemed to have the right read in either case, blowing by Fox on a spin move one possession before picking up an assist out of a double on the other side of the floor.

Harris’ playmaking off of his scoring presence was one of the best parts of this game. Even while riding a heater, he didn’t lose sight of openings on kickouts to get other guys going, striking a nice balance between aggressive and team-friendly.

On top of all of that, Harris made a lot of high-effort plays to extend possessions or catch the Kings before they were set in transition. His motor was switched on from the opening tip, with Harris sliding in for some timely rebounds and transition leak-outs that helped add to his game-leading point total. He hardly put a foot wrong all night, and they needed every bit of it to shake off a losing streak.

(It says a lot about his night that the fans in attendance were basically begging Tobias Harris to go for the 40-ball late in this game with the outcome decided, given the hot-and-cold relationship he has had with the fans. We even got a “We want Tobi!” chant from the crowd after he checked out, the fans obsessed with getting him his 40-ball. A nice touch from the home crowd.)

— Life is better and easier for Tyrese Maxey when threes go down. Threes have not been going down as much as he’d hope lately, which we’ve discussed at length on the podcast. And sometimes, breaking through isn’t about changing your approach, changing the personnel, or changing how the offense is run. You just need to keep hammering away and trust in the work, and in Maxey’s case, there has been plenty of work.

With Maxey dropping some threes in the first half, the Kings were put in that famously unenviable position of trying to guard all areas of the floor at once. Though he came away wanting on some shots around the basket, Maxey continued to push and probe around the hoop, dropping some ridiculous finishes on Kings players as they struggled to hang in the air as long as the fleet-footed No. 0.

But the bigger statement the Kings made was with their coverage. On most plays where Domantas Sabonis was involved in a ball screen against a Maxey action, the Kings hedged to force the ball out of Maxey’s hands. Maxey and his teammates responded beautifully to that strategy, with the point guard finding his release valve with speed and precision throughout the game. Perhaps a replay will blow this view to smithereens, but I thought Maxey and his teammates blew this strategy to smithereens, creating an avalanche of open looks out of it. That certainly reflects well on the lead guard.

(As a group, the Sixers were excellent in those four-on-three possessions on Friday night. Nic Batum crushed on corner threes, and Paul Reed even hit a lob pass out of the short roll in the first half. They hit a lull in the third quarter, but their offensive execution was very good for most of the night.)

Maxey’s stat line won’t blow anyone away, but I thought this game was a great example of him picking his spots effectively and doing, for lack of a better phrase, point guard shit. With Harris rolling, there was no need for a Maxey scoring explosion, and he chose the right play over and over again.

— The Kings were probably a bit unfortunate to be down by nearly 20 points at halftime, given their dominance on the offensive glass and some open misses for guys who are normally knockdown shooters. That being said, the Sixers played fairly inspired defense as a group, a welcome change from their midweek disaster against Atlanta.

Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but the key thing was having a full rotation full of guys who were bought in and attentive away from the ball. With the Sixers doing a good job of funneling drivers toward help at the basket — or standing up Sabonis, in Harris’ case — the Kings were forced into a metric ton of resets and dangerous kickback passes to search for space. That gave their ballhawks ample opportunities to pick passes off, with Paul Reed, Maxey, and Harris darting into space at the right time.

It helped to get good center play from both guys manning that spot on Friday night. Reed bounced back with his usual brand of activity and chaos against the Kings, creating several extra possessions out of good positioning on the 0-glass. But the big man of the game was Mo Bamba, who has sprung to life this week, and he built off of a good outing vs. the Hawks on Friday night.

Bamba made his presence felt at the rim early in this one, turning away multiple shots while bellowing at Kings players to take that shit elsewhere, and he hit a trail three when Maxey got trapped. His three-point shooting has been excellent on low volume this season, so if he can ever play consistently useful defense, he might battle with Reed for Embiid backup minutes.

(Even that might undersell Bamba’s outing. Seeing him battle hard enough for rebounds that he drew fouls on opposing bigs was a welcome sight, because he doesn’t play with that type of attitude too often.)

— I love watching Nic Batum launch threes before most guys have even processed that the ball has hit his hands. It helps that he makes them!

The Bad

— Rebounding was a point of emphasis for the Sixers from the moment Nick Nurse took the job last offseason, and if you zoom out and look at the whole season, they’ve fixed some of their issues there. But buddy, without Joel Embiid, they are an absolute disaster on the glass. It is hard to watch them when the opponent misses shots, which should be a period where you get to celebrate what they accomplished as a group. Nope!

Every way you can give up offensive rebounds, the Sixers managed in this game. Long rebounds on threes that they stood around and watched? Yup. Poor box outs that led to repeated tips toward the rim, with the Sixers unable to get around the guy with better positioning? You bet. They got beat with size, they got beat with speed, and they got beat with effort. It was the one area of the game where you could have felt disappointed, which is both encouraging and aggravating at the same time.

If they were going to let go of the rope in one area, at least it appears they picked the right one, but that’s letting results cloud the crappy process. They might have been up 30 at halftime with better possession clean-up.

The Ugly

— If Jaden Springer can’t get minutes on the heels of an inspired defensive performance against Trae Young, with the Sixers down multiple rotation players, I think it’s fair to say he’s probably not in the plans for this season. No idea what his value is (other than little) on the open market, but the writing is on the wall that he’ll move at the deadline.