Instant observations: Sixers falter late in disappointing loss to Heat

The Sixers made a valiant comeback effort but inexplicably went away from what worked against Miami down the stretch, losing 119-109 to the Heat in an important play-in battle.

Here’s what I saw.

Another roller coaster

The Sixers had to know the Heat were ready to throw a first-quarter haymaker in the circumstances. Miami was coming off a disappointing loss to Indiana and was desperate for a win to help their play-in positioning, hoping to seize tiebreaker rights over the Sixers. And the Heat have also been an elite first-quarter team on offense, as they showed by dropping 38 in a big-time shooting display in South Beach.

The Sixers were only down four after that first quarter, and they mostly had Paul George to thank. I sort of assumed George would take a step back after two huge games post-suspension, but he continues to play inspired basketball, showing off a more explosive and physical approach as a driver to get himself going. We got a rare George dunk early in this one, with George making a decisive move to the hoop for two points. These used to be cause for raucous celebration, almost sarcastic cheers from his teammates for the old man who can’t really fly anymore. Elsewhere, George continues to be a massive part of their best defensive possessions, the player best equipped physically and mentally to execute Nick Nurse’s help-heavy style. George always appears to be close enough to get his hand on the ball as a helper without losing sight of where his original assignment is.

It took a while longer for some of his other stars to get into this one. Tyrese Maxey’s box score impact lagged behind his quality of play, and I thought you could have argued he should have double or even triple the number of helpers based on the quality of his passing. It was a direct retort to anyone who has ever said he isn’t a point guard, with advanced reads from all over the floor, with perfect pace and placement on his passes.

How often do we get to press Tyrese Maxey to be more aggressive? He was a little gunshy on deep threes for a guy who has canned plenty of those, but seemed particularly aware of how many mouths there are to feed on offense right now. Maxey consistently passed up good shots in pursuit of the great ones, and I thought he often made that happen — he had a laser pass to Quentin Grimes on a cut that turned into a corner-three miss from Edgecombe, and a probing drive where he lingered under the hoop long enough to find Paul George wide open in the same corner.

Midway through the third, there was no more time for playing passive. Down double digits with Joel Embiid sent to the bench, it was go time for Maxey, who strung together the head-turning run they needed as the Heat floundered with Bam Adebayo on the bench. He drew a foul with just over two minutes to play in the third, scored in transition 40 seconds later, and closed out the quarter with a deep three, bringing the Sixers to within two points. If not for a questionable Adem Bona foul, that would have been the margin heading into the fourth.

In any case, Maxey and Co. bought enough time for a well-rested Embiid to come in and try to play superhero during crunch time. The bulk of the Sixers’ second-half run came with Embiid glued to the bench, with the big man on ice for about nine minutes across the third and fourth. On his very first possession of the fourth, the Sixers found him in the middle of the floor, big man rose up, bang, two points. He hit another huge three, and an and-one jumper, and looked to be cooking.

For the first half of the night, when the Heat tried to go to their tried and true 2-3 look, Philadelphia simply got the ball to Embiid at the free-throw line, waited for the Heat to swarm, and then moved the ball into wide-open spaces around the perimeter. Miami has flummoxed almost every version of the Sixers with that defense for years, but they finally seem to have figured it out, and Embiid’s ability to operate under pressure in the middle is key. The Sixers were turning zone possessions into wide-open attempts, forcing the Heat to consider other methods for stops.

And then…

The “Didn’t love that!” section

I am not entirely sure why they went away from the zone looks that worked in the first half as the game flipped to the second half. In the third, they had Embiid set up in the corner with Edgecombe in the middle of the zone for reasons that are not clear, and the offense bogged down accordingly. Miami was able to turn it into a jump-shooting quarter for the Sixers, which coincided with a mighty cold stretch from all over the floor. Late in the game, Philly’s zone offense broke down entirely, with the Sixers attempting to play five-out with Embiid on the left wing and mostly just passing the ball side-to-side before forcing up a jumper at the end of the clock. There was no real explanation for that switch, but they put zero pressure on the Heat inside the arc, which makes it tough to create the sort of quality three zone should help you get.

So I put a huge chunk of this loss on Nurse. He was chasing the game in the middle portion, at least two possessions late on every timeout, and not responsive enough to address the problems on the floor. The third quarter got away from them in part because of this, with Nurse waiting too long to pull the plug on a horrific start to the half.

It is not often that the Sixers have needed to treat VJ Edgecombe like a rookie, but Nurse completely missed that he was losing control long before he picked up his tech midway through the third. Edgecombe had spent multiple minutes chirping at the officials after getting called for three fouls in quick succession, clearly upset about the treatment he was getting in a physical game. The broadcast microphones even picked him up yelling at the refs to call it both ways. So when he eventually got himself T’d up screaming at the officials, it’s hard to argue you couldn’t have seen it coming. Hell, I’d argue you could have avoided his last foul, let alone the tech, by giving him a minute or two to cool off on the bench before sending him back out there with a pat on the back.

This may be the most annoyed I’ve been with Embiid’s foul-drawing tactics in years. When Embiid wasn’t trying to grift his way to the line, he had plenty of physically dominant moments against Miami. The Heat tried Kansas teammate Andrew Wiggins on Embiid for a few possessions in either half, and Embiid tossed aside his buddy with perfect back-to-the-basket play. But Embiid got a little bit lost in the foul-baiting game against Miami, throwing up several trash-fire attempts on the assumption that a whistle would come. The Heat, playing faster than every team in the league this year, often punished those failures with a transition three or a layup at the rim. I don’t think this was a good crew or a well-officiated game, but they made it pretty clear that they were not going to reward the attempts at exaggerating contact.

Those struggles, mind you, weren’t the stretch run struggles. Embiid simply missed some shots, as did the rest of the core. And in the end, I’m not sure you can point to any individual player who had a good game by their own standards. Maxey, George, and Embiid combined to shoot 24/63, which is not going to cut it against just about any opponent, let alone a desperate one.

So it goes.

Other notes

— I have rarely been as upset for an individual player as I was when Quentin Grimes absolutely locked Tyler Herro up for an entire defensive possession, only for the Sixers to concede three consecutive offensive rebounds and the eventual two-point putback after all that hard work. It should have been a defensive highlight of the season, and instead turned into a reminder of one of their worst flaws as a group.

What’s worse is that they had a pretty good start to this game on the glass, clearly trying to learn from their mistakes/crimes against basketball in the Charlotte matchup. They gang rebounded well, guards came back for the ball, and did a good job of boxing out to set up others. Even in the midst of a good half, disaster strikes.

— Jenna Schroeder and Ben Taylor on the same officiating crew is pure torture. Late whistles galore, missed calls all over the place, terrible stuff.