The cliché about the playoff series that doesn’t start until the team wins on the road – one that James Harden used after losing Sixers’ Game 2 in Miami – sounds dubious right now.
The Sixers won their second straight race in Philadelphia on Sunday night, finishing their second-round streak against Heath in two intense games with a 116-108 victory at the Wells Fargo Center.
Harden led them to the finale with tons of clutch launches. He recorded 31 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.
Joel Embiid recorded 24 points and 11 rebounds. All five Sixers and Georges Niang holders scored double-digit results.
Jimmy Butler was great with 40 points at a loss.
Dwayne Deadman missed Sunday’s game due to illness. Heat head coach Eric Spoelstra said that before the match the reserve center was “daily” and the test was negative for COVID-19.
Match 5 will be on Tuesday night in Miami. Here are observations of the Sixers’ victory in Match 4:
Embiid returned to business aggressively
Sixers were determined to attack Embiid deeply against their opponents.
This meant looking for the right angles to benefit from switching and fronting Miami, as well as manipulating the Heat, so that the defenders of aid were absent from the picture for a moment. Harden managed two fairly high and low passes, and Tobias Harris also fed Embiid an easy bucket in the first quarter.
However, inhaling the needle is not automatic. Harden made three frictions in the first period, including one when he could not perfectly score the ball in Embiid on the edge. And he hit the rim itself in a similar attempt in the second quarter. It’s tempting to force-feed Embiid, but Sixers will sometimes have better options. Miami tried to make these challenging moments exploring by choosing Harden on a full court.
Embiid was very wide on the left in his first three-point attempt, but did banking in his second. He committed Gabe Vincent’s third foul with 8.4 seconds to go in the first quarter when Heath’s guard gave up with Embid for a top spot in the Miami area. Embiid’s two free throws gave him 15 points (5 to 6 shots) in the first quarter – just three less than he scored on Friday when he returned to Game 3 – and led the Sixers 30-28.
Wearing a fracture protection mask on his right orbit and playing on a torn ligament in his right thumb, Embid, of course, will soon not be the best physically. The start of Game 4 was the least encouraging indication that he could still dominate the games on both sides.
Avoid more bad Harden problems
Even before Harden was called in for his second foul on a 3:05 charge to enter the first, Shake Milton remained in the flexible rotation of Sixers head coach Doc Rivers. Furkan Korkmaz is not playing on Sunday. The idea of Korkmaz’s minutes is certainly less appealing when the Sixers’ outside kicks are sweet and Milton shows he is a capable double-sided player.
Sixers made a few key threes as Harden sat down. Matisse Thybulle scored his first three after game 2 of the first round. Tyris Maxie also squeezed one against the Miami area. Bam Adebayo and Heath’s attack as a whole were surprisingly stronger with Embid on the bench. The Sixers were three points behind when he returned, and that didn’t seem like a bad result for Paul Reed’s first stay.
Danny Green heard “Danny!” chanted on the foul line after a personal 6-0 series. He started 3 for 3 from a long distance after a 7 to 9 performance in Game 3. It was a nice regression to the Green’s average, making just 2 for 14 of three in Games 1 and 2.
These jumpers spun inertia. Harden briefly entered the groove, sinking 3 steps behind Butler to increase the Sixers’ lead to 56-46. The Sixers then overcame the mini-Butler to enter the half with eight, despite zero points from the second quarter of their stellar big man.
Harden huge in the second half
The entanglement of the Greens with former teammate Kyle Lowry forced the 34-year-old to leave at the beginning of the third quarter with four fouls. Niang entered.
Maxi hinted at more magic in the second half after a 21-point performance after the intermission in Match 3, when the 21-year-old drew two free throws at baseline and knocked down a three-pointer.
Tobias Harris then joined Green with four fouls just under five minutes after the third. Thybulle replaced him and scored when Embiid found him free on the baseline. Niang also made an important strike, responding to Butler’s triple, which reduced the Sixers’ lead to 74-70 with one of them.
As the numerous foul notes above show, the physical form of the game escalated in the third quarter and neither team seemed pleased with the refereeing except the player who fired free throws. Adebayo, PJ Tucker and Max Strus were rated with their fourth foul in the third. Philadelphia-born Marquieff Morris played his first minutes after the season as Miami preferred the veteran striker to new center Omer Jurseven.
Of course, it took Maurice about a minute to break Embiid. And later, Embid flatly denied Maurice’s ambitious jumper.
The Sixers evaporated any worries about Embiid’s side time to start the fourth, ordering stops together and taking advantage of a second consecutive rough night of shooting at the Heat (7 vs. 35 of three points). Harden did exactly what the team needed on the other side, assisting Harris’s three-pointer, making two fouls and dropping a three-pointer, increasing the Sixers’ lead to 97-85.
He was almost done with making massive shots. The 10-time All-Star turned a three-pointer over Adebayo and walked past him to lay before burying another long-distance jumper who led the Sixers by eight with three minutes left.
Harden let out a jubilant scream after three more. This shot gave him 30-plus points for the second time as Sixer and ensures that the series has not yet begun, at least by one definition.
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