PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers overcame a 14-point deficit to defeat the Miami Heat, 105-104, in the play-in tournament on Wednesday. The win clinched the No. 7 seed, and they head to Manhattan to take on the New York Knicks in the first round.
A big factor in the win against Miami was Nic Batum, who had 17 of his 20 points after halftime to help bust the zone defense the Heat employed to bother the Sixers.
Joel Embiid didn’t have a great night as he shot just 6-for-17 from the floor, but he had 23 points along with 15 rebounds and five assists. The big fella missed some bunnies at the rim and appeared to get frustrated before making some big plays down the stretch.
“It means a lot,” Embiid said of the win. “Being down a lot. … We stuck together. It just shows you that I don’t play my best, I don’t get to my spots the whole game until the fourth quarter, and we still found a way to win. They like to make it nasty and we can do it too, and we made it nasty too. That’s why you go about defense in such a low-scoring game.”
Considering the easy looks Embiid had that he wasn’t able to convert, one has to wonder if his left knee is bothering him. As time goes on, that will be something to monitor.
“Well, hopefully, every day gets better,” Embiid added. “But we’ll just keep monitoring it.”
A matchup against the physical Heat is good for Embiid. This will allow him to get an idea of how much he can handle at this stage of his injury recovery. Even on something of an off night, he still had 23 and 15.
“Listen, I thought he was OK,” said coach Nick Nurse. “I thought that he competed. I thought he competed late, especially, the last few minutes and again, it’s not that easy. Herro’s coming out there 100 mph, Joel’s gotta be up on those screens to defend. I thought he made a key play, he rebounded the ball—he started rebounding the ball which is huge. So I’m happy. I think it’s a good one to get under his belt with a big scheme and a lot of intensity and a lot of minutes.”
It also doesn’t help him that the Heat are one of the more physical teams in the league and their zone defense can really bother and befuddle any offense.
“I think it wasn’t easy,” Nurse added. “I thought they certainly did a great job. They built in a huge scheme to make things difficult for him, but he made some big plays. He hits a trail 3, throws a great pass to Kelly (Oubre Jr.) for kind of the big basket that we really needed. I don’t know how many assists he had, but he probably had a good number. It felt like a lot more than that. I thought he kicked some out for 3s that guys were hitting.”
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