Did Tobias Harris sit the end of the Sixers’ win vs. the Heat because he was tired or because he wasn’t playing well? In any case, Nick Nurse made the right decision.
Tobias Harris has become an easy punching bag for Sixers fans over the years. With the near-max deal he signed back in 2019, folks in Philly have not been afraid to share their displeasure when the veteran forward struggles.
That’s why head coach Nick Nurse’s choice to sit Harris for the final minutes of the Sixers’ 105-104 Play-In win over the Heat Wednesday has become a hot topic.
The bigger question becomes: will Nurse do it again in the Sixers’ first-round series against the Knicks?
“I really thought that the other night it just ended that way,” Nurse told reporters at the Sixers practice facility Friday. “I thought Tobias played so hard, but he kinda got to ‘E’ on the tank. We had him in a long time for some matchup reasons and we just couldn’t seem to get him out of there. … They had their guy in, too, and I thought, ‘Man, he really needed a rest.’”
The best guess for “their guy” would be either former Sixer Haywood Highsmith or rookie Jaime Jaquez, Jr. Both are bigger wing players that played more minutes in the second half than the first and would be ideal matchups for Harris.
As for the “tired” reasoning, many fans and analysts have concluded that Nurse is lying. Doc Rivers was here for three years, so we’ve all seen how easily and frequently coaches lie. Harris frankly didn’t play well, so this could be a case where a coach was trying to protect one of his players with a fib.
It’s also fair to think Harris was tired. He didn’t play much down the stretch of the regular season while dealing with a couple injuries. He missed six of the final 16 games, averaging around 33 minutes — the number he was at when he left Wednesday’s game.
With 4:38 left and the Sixers trailing 89-86, the ball swung to Harris for a wide-open three and he barely hit the front of the rim. You could make a compelling case for either fatigue or Harris simply coming up short in a big spot.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Nurse made the right choice to close with the players he did.
“A lot of that is just kind of feel of what’s going on, and I imagine that’s going to stay the same,” Nurse said. “Even with Kyle [Lowry], it was like, ‘Should we get Kyle back in or not?’ It was a tricky one. And we did, and he made a couple great plays.”
Nurse indicated that there are six or seven players that could close games. We’ll assume that’s any of the starting five in Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Kyle Lowry, Kelly Oubre, Jr. and Harris, plus Wednesday night’s hero Nicolas Batum. The seventh player is likely Buddy Hield, whose shooting could be a huge factor in the postseason and who acquitted himself quite well in the Play-In game.
Frankly, this is what a good coach does. Brett Brown was known for always closing with his starters. Rivers would sometimes go away from his starting group, but didn’t always read the game correctly as to who should close. It’s likely neither former Sixers head coach would’ve had the guts to sit Harris there.
It speaks to what makes Nurse special as a coach and why the Sixers will likely be in every postseason game they play. Nurse will not stick with things that aren’t working — that includes schemes and personnel.
Think of Rivers banging his head against the wall and continuing to play Dwight Howard and Ben Simmons together in that disastrous series against the Hawks. It’s more likely Nurse would do something like pivot to KJ Martin or Ricky Council IV than stand idly by while the Knicks crush the Sixers on the glass.
Nurse often talks about it. In his pregame availability Wednesday, he said there are “about 2,000 decisions to make out there tonight and I’m certainly not going to get all of them right.” He won’t get everything right, but he’ll at least be willing to admit that and make an adjustment.
“It’s just a lot more counters,” Oubre told reporters about what changes with Nurse in the playoffs. “The regular season, we’ll go through the game plan and go through certain things, but that’s kind of the script before the game. That’s what you go out and do. But we have a lot of counters and a lot of things that we’re working on just to always stay ready for any situation.”
This is going to be a nasty, physical series between two talented teams starting with Game 1 Saturday.
A coach who isn’t afraid to sit a near-max player to close a game could make a huge difference.