Instant observations: Shorthanded Sixers falter down the stretch vs. Heat

The Sixers did not have enough to hang with the visiting Miami Heat on Sunday, losing 127-117 in a pre-Eagles matinee that came down to a shortage of available bodies for Philly.

Here’s what I saw.

Systemic problems

As fun as Philadelphia’s young guys (and guards) have been to open the season, the Heat are among a few teams that have shown the potential limitations of this group in a playoff series. Miami absolutely hammered the Sixers on the offensive glass for stretches of Sunday’s game, with Kel’el Ware pulling down seven offensive rebounds in the first half alone. Forced to play Dominick Barlow and Jabari Walker at backup center with Joel Embiid still out of the lineup, the Sixers struggled to contain initial penetration, leaving their bigs in a rough spot.

In Sunday’s first half, Jamie Jaquez Jr. was absolutely cooking Quentin Grimes in the mid-post, hitting several shots from around 12 feet and in that Grimes never had a chance to make a play on. Grimes shouldn’t really be expected to battle with Jacquez on the block, but with Philadelphia playing small-ball lineups with Dominick Barlow at center, there weren’t a lot of places to find a like-for-like matchup against the Heat. With Grimes in foul trouble throughout the game — he picked up his fifth foul early in the third quarter — the Sixers were also subjected to Jaquez punishing Maxey and McCain inside the arc, which is a recipe for disaster.

Their only viable option there was George, who did an effective job walling Jaquez off, forcing the Heat to recycle possessions and take a few tougher shots from the perimeter. His role within this rising Sixers team should essentially be to put out fires. If they need some scoring help, it’s time for him to get to work. If one of their smaller guards is stuck in a problematic matchup, he has to shift out of his customary role in off-ball help to offer size and smarts. See what the start of the game brings, and then move him around the chessboard. He supplied a nice blend of secondary playmaking and defense, but he could not get going from the field, going 0-for on his three-point attempts on Sunday.

The main problem with George is that he hit his minutes limit in the second half, ultimately sending Sixers back into those problematic matchups. With no Kelly Oubre to absorb minutes and take tough defensive assignments, Philly was drawing dead on far too many defensive possessions.

Elsewhere in the errors department, the Sixers are going to need to find a happy medium with their help defense. Nurse’s teams are going to play aggressively when they can in order to force turnovers, and they have a smart enough group of players to give them leeway to freelance, but Miami was able to punish some reckless help defense on Sunday. They made a few needlessly risky double teams from one pass away on the strong side, giving the Heat open threes they otherwise struggled to generate. That, unlike the roster size issue, is at least something within their control.

Otherwise, this just felt like a game where they were a player or two short. Given the absences of Embiid, Edgecombe, and Oubre, that feels like a reasonable enough reason to lose a random matinee game in late November.

Jared McCain is settling in

Slowly but surely, Jared McCain is finding his comfort on the basketball court again. He was going to play more minutes out of necessity with VJ Edgecombe sidelined, but Nurse has been finding more time for him since McCain completed a two-game stint with the Delaware Blue Coats. And none of this success appears to be dependent on specific matchups or lineups, which may be the most encouraging sign of all.

McCain talked last week about the “bump J” being one of his favorite shots, and when he hit one for his first make of the game, he turned to a celebration Jared McCain doesn’t get to use too often, a too-small gesture as he jogged back down the court. He was energized after that, jawing with Heat players throughout the first half. That included a moment that came during a drink-spill stoppage near Miami’s bench, with McCain flashing a big smile and getting into what we’ll call an “animated conversation” with a few members of the Heat.

Finally, the outside shot appears to be there for McCain. His pull-up three late in the first half was the sort of shot he hit with regularity during his fire-breathing stretch last fall, and with McCain going 3/4 from deep against the Heat, he was able to find cracks as a driver that hadn’t presented themselves in his previous games. McCain’s ineffectiveness as a driver shouldn’t be ignored — he was 2/7 inside the arc, mind you — but simply getting to the rim is a step forward right now. Up to this point, McCain had looked lethargic trying to attack teams off the dribble, so I will settle for good moves with poor finishing.

If nothing else was accomplished in this game, the Sixers generated some rhythm for McCain, who ended up playing 20+ minutes against Miami.

Not enough from Maxey

This was, for a good chunk of the first half, a pretty mediocre Tyrese Maxey performance. He was 1/6 from three, 4/11 from the field, and getting stuck on the perimeter, taking well-contested stepbacks. Philadelphia’s offense spent a lot of time trying to hunt Pelle Larsson with ball screens. While I love seeing targeting like that, they weren’t accomplishing much by hyperfocusing on that matchup.

The game turned on a complete desperation play from Maxey, who was forced to scramble for a loose ball at the end of a broken possession. Tossing up a prayer as the shot clock expired, Maxey somehow found the bottom of the net on this shot, drawing a roar of disbelief from the home crowd:

Tyrese Maxey makes the desperation turnaround 3-point shot to beat the shot clock pic.twitter.com/RtibtRW1m8

— MrBuckBuck (@MrBuckBuckNBA) November 23, 2025

It looked like that would be all it would take to get him going. The Sixers got a stop on their next possession, and Justin Edwards immediately found Maxey on the right wing for a transition three. Moments later, feeding off of the energy of the home crowd, Jared McCain hit a confident pull-up three, and the Sixers were level with Miami with just seconds to go in the first half. We’ll simply pretend that their end-of-quarter execution was better and that the tie was preserved at halftime.

But while Maxey got some more threes to drop, he had some uncharacteristic misses attacking downhill, including on a must-have six-footer in the closing minutes of the game that felt like their last chance to go on a late run. The Heat threw some of their usual zone looks at the Sixers and hard hedged against Maxey on a few occasions, trying to force him off the ball in what was ultimately a successful gambit. While I would give him a touch of blame for their lack of organization against the zone — too many possessions went by with nobody serving as a hub in the middle of the floor — that’s a high degree of nitpicking. He was only very good on a night when they needed great. So it goes.

Other notes

— With Quentin Grimes in foul trouble, the Sixers needed secondary offense from their role players, and they got a nice jolt from both of Andre Drummond and Trendon Watford. Getting something from the latter is a little less surprising, even if he has been in fairly poor form recently. Watford was able to play his signature brand of junkball around the rim, pushing touch shots and hooks into the basket against mismatches.

Drummond’s contributions are moving into stunning territory, though. The rebounding is one thing, but he has been able to provide much more than anyone could have expected on offense, routinely hitting catch-and-shoot threes and sprinkling in the occasional jump hook from eight feet and in. He has offered a needed dose of physicality on a team that has leaned more toward finesse this season, and was their only hope to keep Ware, Adebayo and Co. off of the glass.

— I will say it for what feels like the millionth time this season already, but this team is simply terrible in two-for-one situations. Terrible execution and focus.

— Few things drive me crazier than players committing obvious fouls and then complaining to the officials as if they were not in the same zip code as the player they fouled. Grimes had a couple of these on Sunday. Save the complaints for when they might need something, my friend.

— Another well-rounded outing for Justin Edwards in a low-usage role. Love that he is getting more involved on the defensive end, where I know the coaching staff is keeping a close eye on him.

That said, boy, he has some brutal decision-making moments when he does anything on offense outside of shooting spot-up jumpers.