Tobias Harris sur Shake Milton : « Je me demande s’il avait une salle à disposition là où il était confiné »
Décimés depuis samedi avec de nombreux joueurs en protocole sanitaire, les Sixers en ont récupéré quelques-uns : Tobias Harris, Matisse Thybulle et Shake Milton. Pas simple d’être écarté comme ça pendant une semaine, et d’être confiné, mais les 3 ont été excellents.
A commencer par Shake Milton, en feu en première mi-temps, auteur de 23 points et qui termine avec 31 points à 11/15 dont 3/4 à 3-pts et 7 passes en 27 minutes. Il a continué sur sa lancée d’avant confinement puisque lors des deux précédents matchs il avait totalisé 43 points à 14/22.
« Il a été génial. Il faisait aussi partie des gars mis à l’écart, considéré comme cas contact. Je me demande s’il avait une salle à disposition là où il était confiné, parce qu’il a joué comme s’il n’avait pas manqué le moindre match. Quoi qu’il ait fait, nous allons le découvrir. » Tobias Harris
Tobias Harris a ajouté 18 points à 7/13 dont 2/4 à 3-pts, et Matisse Thybulle a fait le job, bien meilleur que ce que son scoring ne suggère : 8 points à 2/7 dont 2/6 à 3-pts. Il a surtout intercepté 4 ballons et contré 1 tir.
« Il ont été tous les 3 excellents. Tobias nous a donné un coup de boost au poste 4, obligeant Miami à changer son lineup et leur façon de défendre. Shake a de toute évidence été incroyable ce soir et Matisse a été phénoménal défensivement. Il a réalisé tellement d’actions. C’est le Matisse dont nous avons besoin chaque soir. J’ai vraiment aimé comment il a joué avec énergie. Je me fiche de son scoring. Ca viendra, mais il doit faire une différence défensivement. » Doc Rivers
Les Sixers repartent de l’avant après 3 revers qui avaient stoppé net leur bonne dynamique. Cela a même peut-être eu du bon ces absences puisque cela a permis à des joueurs de se montrer comme Tyrese Maxey et Isaiah Joe. Les deux rookies ont été très bons hier soir. 15 points à 6/10 pour Maxey et 12 points à 4/8 à 3-pts pour Joe, qui n’a pas hésité à dégainer. Il a saisi la chance donnée par Doc Rivers
« Bien sûr je ne vais probablement pas avoir le feu vert comme je l’avais à Arkansas, mais l’équipe m’a fait venir pour une raison et c’est pour shooter. Ils n’ont pas fait venir un shooteur pour qu’il ne shoote pas. C’est ce que je vais faire. » Joe
Il le fait très bien sur les derniers matchs avec 15 réussite en 4 matchs dont un excellent 12/25 sur les 3 derniers.
The rookie stuffed a Herro jumper and was again competitive and attentive defensively. One quality Rivers likes with Joe on the other end of the floor is his let-it-fly mindset.
“Of course I probably won’t have the green light I had at (Arkansas), but the team is bringing me on for a reason and that’s to shoot the ball,” Joe said before the season. “They’re not going to bring a shooter on a team to not shoot the ball. That’s what I’m going to do. If they tell me otherwise, then I have to cater to that. But coming on, I really believe that they are getting me for shooting ability, and so I’ve got to do that to the best of my ability.”
Joe hasn’t been told otherwise and he drained four threes Thursday night, the third consecutive game he’s done so.
If he keeps playing well, expect him to keep getting rotation minutes when Furkan Korkmaz returns from his left adductor injury.
“There’s never any complications when guys are playing well, » Rivers said. « There’s room.
**
This time the 76ers, with reinforcements returning, had no problem with the depleted Miami Heat.
The Sixers welcomed back Shake Milton, Tobias Harris, and Matisse Thybulle, who each missed the past three games due to health and safety protocols. None of them showed much rust in Thursday’s 125-108 win over the Heat at the Wells Fargo Center.
Milton scored 31 points, Harris 18, and Thybulle 8 as the Sixers got their second win in three days over the Heat in this baseball-type series in Philadelphia. On Tuesday, the Sixers earned a 137-134 overtime win.
“They were great, all of them,” coach Doc Rivers said of Harris, Milton, and Thybulle. “Tobias just giving us a lift at the four (power forward), changing Miami’s lineup, how they wanted to defend us. Shake was obviously incredible tonight and Matisse was phenomenal defensively, he made so many plays. That is the Matisse we need every night.”
For the second straight game against the Sixers, Miami had the minimum of eight players at coach Erik Spoelstra’s disposal. The Sixers had 10 players but only played eight in Tuesday’s win. On Thursday, they had 14 available players and 10 had seen action before the first quarter ended.
The 6-foot-5 combo guard has shown a great ability to get his own shot off the dribble. He can take smaller defenders to the basket, but also gives the Sixers a viable perimeter and three-point threat.
Milton entered the game shooting just 27.5% from beyond the arc, after shooting 43% last season. He hit all three of his three-pointers in the first half.
Harris also set the tone early, by scoring nine points in the first quarter. He said he stayed in shape over the last week by doing countless errands in his house.
J’ai soulevé beaucoup de boites lourdes, je les ai ouvertes
“I was lifting a lot of these heavy boxes and opening them and bringing the garbage out and that’s really it right here,” said Harris. “I was very happy to be out of the house after seven days.”
Thybulle, besides the eight points, had four steals and a blocked shot.
Before the game, Rivers said he didn’t know how long the three would play. They had not played since last Thursday’s 122-109 loss at Brooklyn.
The Sixers were only without two rotation players — starting shooting guard Seth Curry, who missed his fifth straight game after testing positive for COVID-19 last week, and Furkan Korkmaz, out for the 10th straight game with a groin injury.
Among the missing for Miami due to health and safety protocols, were Bam Adebayo and former Sixer Jimmy Butler, All-Stars from a year ago, and Goran Dragic who is averaging 14.8 points. That is a lot of firepower.
Before the game coach Rivers insisted that his relationship with Ben Simmons was fine after the Sixers point guard was very much in play during trade talks with the Houston Rockets for James Harden. As it turns out, Harden was traded to Brooklyn, and Simmons remains a Sixer. Amateur psychologists will have a field day looking into the relationship between Simmons and not only Rivers, but the franchise.
He finished with a triple-double of 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 12 assists on Thursday and didn’t want to say too much about how he was affected by seeing his name in trade rumors.
“This is a business, things like that happen,” Simmons said. “The only thing I can control is how i approach my workouts, games and day-to-day things so I’m just trying to be professional, do the right thing and help my team get wins.”
The Sixers went on a 14-1 run to close the first quarter and take a 38-30 lead. They continued to push the ball at a fast pace in the second quarter, similar to what Atlanta did to a depleted Sixers team in Monday’s 116-94 loss to the Hawks.
What’s interesting is that Simmons and Embiid only combined for nine first-half points while the rest of the team put up 64. After torching the Heat for 45 points Tuesday, Embiid wasn’t close to the same dominating figure, finishing with nine points in less than 24 minutes.
The Sixers led 98-78 after three quarters.
One thing that Miami showed is that when the full team returns, last year’s Eastern Conference finalist should be a handful.
The Heat play as hard as any team in the NBA and second-year guard Tyler Herro, a standout in last year’s playoffs, showed his improvement in both games against the Sixers. Known for his long-range shooting, what Herro did well against the Sixers was drive it to the basket for most of his 17 points. Duncan Robinson led the Heat with 22.
Sixers forward Mike Scott, who was scoreless in 5 minutes and 10 seconds in the first half, was sidelined the rest of the game with right knee soreness.