The Philadelphia 76ers have their superstar Joel Embiid back – and this led them directly to their second victory in the third game over the Miami Heat. The clear 128:108 result (BOXSCORE) deceives over an actually intensive game.
Just minutes before the start of the game it was unclear whether Joel Embiid would be there – the Cameroonian should first participate in the warm-up and then evaluate how he felt. It was enough, so Embiid returned to the starting lineup and was able to intervene in the game for the first time in this series. In order to protect the orbit, which was still not fully healed, he appeared with a specially made mask.
His presence was immediately noticeable, especially defensively. The Heat had success at the beginning only from downtown, near the basket Embiid recorded a block early and changed some more litters. Offensively, however, the rust was still more noticeable to him – but the Sixers nevertheless caught the better first quarter. Thanks to a very good shooting especially by Marco Belinelli (11 points) Philly led 37:33 after twelve minutes, whereby the also good Heat-Bank shortened the gap in the last minutes.
In the second quarter the game got a bit more heated. Dwyane Wade clashed with Justin Anderson, and shortly afterwards an Anderson foul of Hassan Whiteside was reviewed. The flow of the game slowed down, especially as Embiid lost his mask shortly afterwards and the game was interrupted again. When they did play, Miami were the slightly better team – thanks in particular to Justise Winslow, who had already torpedoed his playoff career high before the break (19 points on break). We went on break with 64:63 Miami.
After the break it went on in the same style, both teams didn’t give each other anything and worked on each other permanently. In the third quarter, Goran Dragic in particular really turned up with 11 points, but the Heat were once again unable to break away. Before the last run it was 96:94 for Philly – and within a very short time it was 10 points ahead in the last run. Dragic came back and quickly found Richardson for two threesomes, but the Sixers were now stronger in flow.
Embiid turned up the heat again, and Dario Saric scored points in Transition. A good three minutes before the end Philly led with 13, then Belinelli found Simmons to the monster-dunk including primal scream. After that Miami’s resistance broke and the lead was much greater than the game had actually dictated.
In the end, the Sixers’ top scorer was Embiid again with 23 points, and Saric and Belinelli scored 21 each, while Simmons scratched the triple double again with 19, 11 rebounds and 7 assists and collected 4 steals. In Miami, Dragic was the best man with 23 points and 8 assists, Winslow lost 19 points and 9 rebounds in the second half.
Match 4 of the series will also take place on Saturday evening at 8.30 pm (live on DAZN) in Miami.
Miami Heat vs. Philadelphia 76ers 108:128, series 1:2 (BOXSCORE)
Ben Simmons. It’s scary how controlled and confident Simmons appears in his first playoff series. You almost got used to his offensive output near a triple double, but also defensively Simmons was on top again and covered every kind of dangerous heat player from Dragic to Whiteside. Finally, it’s the Charity Stripe (7/8 FT).
Hassan Whiteside. It remains the same: Even though Embiid was his classic opponent again, this is not the series for Whiteside. The Heat-Center collected fouls and always seemed much too lethargic, almost uninvolved. Neither offensively nor defensively he had a positive influence on his team’s game (5 points and 2 rebounds in 13 minutes). So Spoelstra has no good reason to let him play anymore.
With the return of Embiid and the Formtief, if you will call it that, from Whiteside, Spoelstra faced a new challenge – how would you defend the All-Star? The answer was: With many looks. Whiteside played Embiid, as did Adebayo, James Johnson and Olynyk. Somewhat surprisingly, Olynyk had the most success – he held up very well in the post and forced some turnovers and misses from Embiid. The Cameroonian did his damage, of course, but he did it mainly with his long-range throw – and of course free throws.