National Basketball Association

Tobias Harris' career day powers 76ers past Wizards in Game 1

Updated May. 23, 2021 5:39 p.m. ET

Five games in, there has yet to be a letdown in the 2021 NBA playoffs, as the Eastern Conference's top seed – the Philadelphia 76ers – and the conference's lowest seed – the Washington Wizards – put together an intriguing Game 1 in their best-of-seven series on Sunday afternoon.

Eventually, it was the Sixers that emerged victorious, behind a career day from semi-veteran forward Tobias Harris.

Let's take a look at how Philly took a 1-0 lead in the series:

Key performer: Tobias Harris

You can't say that Sunday was vintage Harris because we've never seen this from Harris before.

The 10-year forward came out ablaze in the first half of Sunday's game, scoring 28 points in the first 24 minutes, a number that at one point was more than the rest of the Sixers' roster.

He finished the day with a playoff career-high 37 points, and the Sixers needed it, considering one half of their All-Star duo – point guard Ben Simmons – struggled offensively, scoring just six points on 3-for-9 shooting, including an 0-for-6 performance from the free-throw line.

Coming into Sunday, Harris was averaging a pedestrian 15.4 points in 20 postseason games, shooting just 42.1% from the field in those 20 appearances.

On Sunday, he connected on 15-of-29 field goal attempts and added in six rebounds, two assists and two steals.

If the Sixers can win games with Harris playing the role of second superstar (All-Star big man Joel Embiid finished the day with 30 points in 30 minutes on 9-for-16 shooting), affording Simmons days where he accumulates more shot attempts than points, that's a scary proposition for the rest of the league.

Turning point: Acquired scoring pays off

Remember this past offseason when new Sixers GM Daryl Morey did a bunch of wheeling and dealing and brought in sharpshooters Seth Curry and Danny Green?

It paid off in crunch time on Sunday.

Philly entered the fourth quarter with a 99-93 lead and stretched it to a 108-97 lead with about 10 minutes to go.

But the Wizards wouldn't go away, and with 8:17 to go, Washington was within five at 108-103.

It was at that point that Curry hit a jumper at the 7:31 mark and scored a layup at the 6:03 mark, and Green hit a big 3 at the 4:23 mark, giving Philly a 115-106 advantage to help hold off the Wizards' late push.

All three of those buckets, for good measure, came via assists from Simmons, who dished out 15 helpers on the day to make up for his scoring woes.

Wild card: Who else?

Russell Westbrook.

The NBA's triple-double king scored 16 points on 7-for-17 shooting and dished out 14 assists to go along with five rebounds in 43 minutes. He also tallied six turnovers on the day.

Westbrook was by no means bad, but he was somewhat ineffective in the second half, going 2-for-7 from the field.

His play, as always, will define Washington's success.

Did you know?

With the win, the 76ers snapped a four-game losing streak in playoff series Game 1s. The last time Philly won a Game 1 was the 2018 Eastern Conference first round.

Twitter's take:

What's next?

Game 2 will take place on Wednesday in Philadelphia at 7 p.m. ET.

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