76ers collapse late in 4th quarter, drop huge game to Miami

Going into this game, the stakes were known. If the 76ers could muster up a win, Philly could finally find themselves in a playoff spot after spending most of the past few months in the play-in. Just 0.5 games back from the Atlanta Hawks, this was the prime opportunity for the Sixers. However, it was a late-game push by the Heat that led Miami to a 119-109 win, shutting down those chances, at least for the time being.

Philadelphia drops to 41-34 and sits at the 7 seed in the Eastern Conference, while the Heat improve to 40-36 and are the 9 seed in the conference. Miami takes the season series over the Sixers, meaning they will have the tiebreaker should both teams finish with the same record.

The story of the season has been poor 3rd quarter performances by Philadelphia, but on Monday night, it was the 4th that cost the game. Philadelphia held on to a tight 107-103 lead over Miami with just over 3 minutes remaining, trying to close things out and continue their recent dominance in the league. With a fully healthy lineup, which has been a rare sighting as of late, expectations have risen. Despite this, Philadelphia let up this 4-point lead and proceeded to allow Miami to finish the game on a 16-6 run in the final 3 minutes.

Interestingly, Nick Nurse, with a healthy roster, elected to have 7 of the 8 players who got real time to play at least 20 minutes. The injury report was empty (excluding Johni Broome), but yet Andre Drummond, Trendon Watford, and the heating up Cam Payne couldn’t get in the game. Justin Edwards, who has also turned things up a notch this month, only saw a single minute of action. The late-game collapse could be due to this, as Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Joel Embiid, Quentin Grimes, and Paul George all had played at least 30 minutes, with Maxey playing 44, seemed sluggish at the end of the game. Had the minutes been distributed more evenly, or at least less top-heavy, the late-game scenario could have gone differently.

Philly struggled defensively against Miami, dealing with multiple different kinds of offense when trying to defend the Heat. The combination of Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo, Pelle Larsson, Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Andrew Wiggins was simply too much to handle for the Sixers squad, who are still getting used to all playing together again.

Herro was the leader on the offensive side of things for Miami, dropping 30 points, including the dagger three with a little over a minute remaining. Adebayo, on the other hand, utilized his versatile skillset and added 23 points and 16 rebounds to help his team. Many of Adebayo’s rebounds ended up in a pass to Jaquez Jr. and Wiggins, who each knocked down a pair of threes. Larsson utilized his slashing ability and his mid-range jump shot to pick apart the Philadelphia defense, which had no answers. Miami, which was on the second leg of a back-to-back, was able to drop 30 points in transition, highlighting its versatility and conditioning on offense.

The Sixers simply were unable to get on the same page dealing with all the different offensive strategies from the Heat, leading to the loss.

Offensively, Philadelphia saw Embiid lead the team in scoring with 26, while Maxey added 23, George with 19, and Edgecombe with 13. Grimes and Kelly Oubre Jr. each added 11 points, and Oubre snagged 11 rebounds to go along with his double-digit scoring performance.

Unfortunately for Philadelphia, the 6-seeded Hawks won a massive game against the Boston Celtics to improve to 43-33 on Monday night as well, now pushing the gap to 1.5 games between the play-in and playoffs. The 76ers have got 7 games remaining in the season, 4 of which are against potential championship contenders. Philadelphia needs to get back on track fast if it wants to not worry about the play-in tournament.

Evan Hartenstein

Evan has been a member of the Philly Sports Reports team since March 2023. He is covering the 76ers and wants to pursue a long-lasting career in Sports Journalism.

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