The Philadelphia 76ers were brought down to earth a bit by the Miami Heat as they lost for the first time at home on the season 108-104 on Wednesday. The Sixers normally stout defense was not there on a night where it had to be due to the fact that they could not beat a defense that mostly prep teams use: a zone defense.
After a first-quarter where the Sixers scored 29 points and attacked the paint, the Heat did something that absolutely threw off their offense and that’s to apply a simple 2-3 zone defense. The Sixers tried to bust it by throwing out Furkan Korkmaz and Mike Scott, but their efforts weren’t enough and Josh Richardson shot 3-for-10 from deep with Tobias Harris going 2-for-6.
“I think it just flattened us out a bit when they switched to it,” said Richardson. “I think the third quarter was kind of slow and I think we were settling a bit not trying to get the ball inside like we could have.”
The zone forces a team to shoot from the outside in order to score, but it is beatable when you have a big guy who can operate around the foul line and work along the baseline. The Sixers have that guy in Joel Embiid, but it was not enough.
“They’re good at the zone, they practice a lot and I think once we started figuring that out in the fourth quarter, things shifted and they had to get out of it, but we waited a little too long to start attacking it more,” the former Heat guard said. “You’ve just got to move the ball. You’ve got to get it to the high post, low post, and play inside-out or you’ve got to drive it. You can’t just stand with the ball over your head.”
As a team, Philadelphia shot 12-for-39 from deep and when they finally found their rhythm in the fourth, it was too late. Harris said it’s as simple as knocking down shots.
“The key to beating a zone like that, you’ve just got to make shots,” he said. “You’ve got to make threes to kind of make them get discouraged and get them out of a zone. I thought once they threw the zone at us, we didn’t make enough shots so they got encouraged with it and it was effective for them.”
Embiid, who finished with 22 points and 19 rebounds, scored 12 points in the fourth and he believes the Sixers weren’t aggressive enough to attack.
“We weren’t aggressive enough in the first half,” said the big man. “I don’t even remember myself being in any action or getting the ball. It was in the scouting report, we knew they were going to do it. We prepared for it, but I guess we didn’t act on what we talked about.”
The zone defense is something that they will continue to see as the season wears on. This is a copy cat league and teams will use what the Heat did on Wednesday night and then use it on their end when they face Philadelphia in the future. This is a learning experience for coach Brett Brown and company. [lawrence-related id=21626,21609,21584]