With Heat on for Game 3, Embiid listed as ‘doubtful’
PHILADELPHIA » Better cuts. More ball movement. More attention to the game plan. Improved spacing. More accurate screens.
Those were some of the things the 76ers were planning to use as they hit Miami for Game 3 of their first-round playoff series Thursday at 7.
Joel Embiid? That is one thing that they will not necessarily have.
After a workout Wednesday in which he was filmed shooting, Embiid was declared “doubtful” for Game 3. The center has not played since a March 28 on-court collision with Markelle Fultz that left him with a cracked orbital bone. Surgery was successful, but the recovery continues.
The Sixers haven’t cleared Embiid medically. Yet since the Sixers had declared him “out” before Games 1 and 2, the “doubtful” designation is a slight upgrade. Brett Brown will take the sheer possibility of a return of the All-Star center as a positive.
“If you gave me the choice of this uncertainty vs. the possibility that he will play,” the Sixers’ coach said, “I’d take ‘possibility’ all day, every day.”
Given the style of their 113-103 loss in Game 2 at the Wells Fargo Center, the Sixers could use the physical presence of Embiid as soon as possible. Playing with a tone that some might call ice hockey, the Heat literally shoved and grabbed the Sixers out of their preferred pace. Since there is no reason for the Heat to become less likely to batter them around, the only thing the Sixers can do in Game 3 is execute with more precision.
“Space, speed, fundamentals of getting open, technique of creating a lead, body-body-ball, being strong, purposeful knowledge of what structure you’re in, those types of things,” Brown said. “And not begging or asking for things from a referee. And you move on.”
Fundamentals will help. Shooting better will help more. After shooting a mystical 18-for-28 from three-point range in a 130-103 Game 1 victory, the Sixers were at risk of a law-of-averages correction in Game 2. So it would happen, as they shot 7-for-36 from distance. Much of that was due to the Heat’s increased defensive presence. Some was due to a slower pace. All of it, says Ben Simmons, can be corrected with more efficient ballmovement, a task he has promised to accept.
“You just try to get the best shots you can and eventually they will fall,” he said. “You’re not going to make every shot. That’s the way the game is played.”
Though the Sixers had an 18game winning streak stopped Monday, they oddly won the first, third and fourth quarters. Yet they were outscored, 34-13, in the second, inspiring Brown to dedicate almost all of his day-after film-session to those second 12 minutes.
“We watched the whole second period,” he said. “If we were all adults in the room, and it needs to be led by me, we would say, ‘How can we take this and make it a positive?’”
Positively, Embiid would help. If not, Brown must choose a starting center. In Game 1, that was Amir Johnson. In Game 2, it was Ersan Ilyasova. That the Sixers have won 18 of their last 19 leaves them in something less than a panic situation. But they do not want to return from Miami down, 3-1, in the series. Game 4 is Saturday afternoon at 2:30.
“We hadn’t lost since March 13,” Brown said. “And that feeling of losing, we haven’t felt for a while. And I am reminded how it’s not a great feeling. And you don’t really sleep. And you think: What do you want to do? Your mood changes. The team’s mood changed, and it should.
“They broke our serve. They broke our serve. Now they’ve got what they wanted. They are home. Now we have to do the same. We have to go down there and find a win.”
For that, the Sixers will need to limit the damage done by Dwyane Wade, who scored 28 in Game 2. They cannot be outrebounded, as they were, 35-32, in that defeat. And they need more from Robert Covington, who shot 3-for-13, and Fultz, who lasted only 4:38 and seemed overwhelmed by the moment.
“I think effort is always going to be the biggest thing,” Fultz said. “If you have skill and you are just out there relaxing, somebody who is playing with the most effort is definitely going to get the most out of it. So it is just a matter of gameplanning and going out there and playing as hard as you can.”
The Sixers have won 53 times this season. They know how it is done.
“We feel we are going down there equipped to win,” Brown said, before the trip. “We have what we need to win. We have to make sure the group is as tight as we can be.
“Obviously, there are the distractions of Miami or family, and they are real for any team. We have to stay together with sort of a bunkerin mentality with our group.”
With or without Embiid.