For a few hours, the Sixers' Monday night road contest against the Miami Heat felt as if it was over before it had even started. While Miami announced Jimmy Butler would play after missing a handful of games with an ankle injury, the Sixers made Joel Embiid questionable with an illness, only to downgrade him to doubtful soon after.
After hours of hysteria over Embiid hypothetically missing the game, in classic Embiid fashion, the former NBA MVP was upgraded to available 30 minutes before tip-off. Embiid started alongside Kyle Lowry, Jared McCain, Paul George and Caleb Martin.
The Sixers looked outstanding for 15 minutes. For the next 33 minutes, catastrophe ensued. Here is what stood out from the Sixers' 106-89 loss in Miami.
Opening matchups and rotation decisions
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse was facing a handful of schematic and rotational decisions headed into this one. Here is where he landed:
• Ever since Lowry joined the Sixers, Nurse has liked the matchup of using the 38-year-old point guard as Butler's primary defender. He moves the assignment around a bunch whenever these teams do battle, but Lowry's strength and smarts make him a challenging obstacle for Butler
• During Butler's absence, Tyler Herro has been outstanding for Miami. Nurse went with Martin against Herro in Martin's first game against the Heat since departing following a strong three-year tenure which included a run to the 2023 NBA Finals. Martin also scored five early points against his former team:
Apparently, the Heat did not play a tribute video for Martin because he did not win a championship or make an All-Star team. Seems harsh!
• Nurse stuck with two-way point guard Jeff Dowtin Jr. as his backup point guard with Tyrese Maxey sidelined and Lowry elevated into the starting five. Dowtin's play has tapered off a bit of late, but he does present more reliability as a defender and decision-maker than veteran Reggie Jackson, who offers the outside chance of a juiced scoring night.
• The struggling Andre Drummond returned to his backup center role in the first quarter. Drummond has not played well individually, and the Sixers have been throughly outplayed on both ends of the floor during his minutes. Until...
Sixers turn the tables with Embiid off the floor, as George makes strong scoring surge
Has hell frozen over? The Sixers outscored Miami by 20 points in Drummond's first stint of the game, which lasted about nine minutes. The veteran center scored four points, grabbed three rebounds and had an assist, a block and a steal. This was far from a one-man job, though.
George kicked off the Sixers' scoring with a triple off an assist from Embiid, and it was the start of an excellent opening to the game:
Later in the quarter -- particularly when Embiid checked out at the 3:48 mark -- George became especially assertive offensively. His 11 minutes and change of action in the opening frame were awfully productive:
The Sixers carried an eight-point lead into the second quarter, with George's 11, Martin's five and a pair of McCain triples leading the way.
McCain can't stop scoring
The Sixers' lead continued to expand early in the second quarter, during a stretch in which Nurse surprisingly went with a lineup featuring neither of his two available All-Stars. But that is a luxury he felt could be afforded to him because of the rapid progression of McCain, who already appears capable of being the focal point of an NBA offense for extended stretches.
McCain thrived inside the arc, scoring a trio of two-point baskets early in the second quarter -- including one after a gorgeous set-up to a spin move here:
It is absolutely not normal what McCain is doing as a rookie. He continues to show ridiculous scoring and shooting chops as a rookie, and if he continues on this trajectory, it will alter how everyone must thing about the Sixers and their roster construction in the short- and long-term.
A rotation surprise
For the first time all season, Guerschon Yabusele was not in Nurse's regular rotation in Miami. Nurse sticking with Drummond as his backup five was not particularly surprising; he has insisted that Yabusele's long-term role would come at the four. But on Monday, the 28-year-old forward was out of the picture.
Instead, Nurse exclusively went with lineups featuring Oubre, George or Martin at the four during the first half, pushing Yabusele out of the frontcourt rotation in favor of Eric Gordon, who logged seven minutes off the bench and shot 1-of-4 from the field and 1-of-3 from beyond the arc while committing a turnover. Oubre, Drummond and Dowtin -- the Sixers' other three reserves in the regular rotation during this game -- all had a plus/minus of at least +15 in the first half, while Gordon's was only +5.
Missed opportunities cost Sixers, who enter intermission with 56-53 lead
Even as the Heat trimmed a 19-point Sixers lead to three in the final nine minutes and change of the first half, the Sixers' process was not bad at all. They consistently generated excellent looks, particularly open three-point tries. They just could not get the ball to go through the basket consistently, which opened the door for Miami to make major inroads on the deficit by just posting a decent offensive quarter.
The Sixers scored 10 points in the final nine minutes and 23 seconds of play in the first half. And unlike their far-too-common offensive lulls early in the 2024-25, this slump was not merely the product of a poor offensive approach. Embiid in particular was able to set the table for his teammates to fire away uncontested triples routinely -- but the shots have to go in, and they just would not go in for much of the second quarter.
Disastrous third quarter puts Sixers in major hole... again
Time and time again, this team comes out flat out of halftime. Even when the pressure to finally win games rises, the pattern remains exactly the same. And, once more, the Sixers suffered a cataclysmic third quarter when they were outscored by Miami, 35-16.
The Sixers were decimated on both ends of the floor, punctuating a stretch in which Miami outscored them by 35 points in a span lasting 21 minutes and 23 seconds.
I will say that again: in a stretch that was not even the length of a full half of NBA basketball, the Sixers were outscored by 35 points -- by a team that entered the game with a 5-7 record.
Another humiliating loss sinks Sixers to 2-11 record, as Embiid goes silent
What else is there to say? With every game, this Sixers team finds a new low. The latest: an epic mid-game collapse in Miami, and for the second straight contest, the team dropped a winnable game when they played a decent stretch of basketball and then completely took their foot off the gas.
Even while considering his apparent illness, Embiid's lack of aggression as a scorer was mystifying. It resulted in a stunning development: his first game without a free throw attempt since the 2017-18 season. It had been 2,474 days since Embiid had gone an entire game without stepping to the foul line.
The Sixers continue to have no ability to be patient for Embiid to find something resembling his best self. But with each game, the longer of a process it seems he and the team are in the midst of.
Only one NBA team has a worse record than these Sixers: the 2-12 Raptors, who defeated the Sixers in Toronto during the opening week of the season.
Up next: The Sixers will head to Memphis to finish up their three-game road trip against a Grizzlies team which defeated them handily earlier this month. They will then return home for a three consecutive games in Philadelphia.
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