Top seed Heat take 2-0 lead on 76ers

Bam Adebayo scored 23 points, Jimmy Butler had 22 points and 12 assists, and the Heat beat Philadelphia 119-103 in Miami on Wednesday night for a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Victor Oladipo scored 19 points on his 30th birthday and Tyler Herro added 18 for the Heat, the East’s No. 1 seed. Oladipo had 10 of those points in the fourth quarter.

Tyrese Maxey scored 34 points for Philadelphia, which got 21 from Tobias Harris and 20 from James Harden.

A 10-0 run in the fourth turned an eight-point Miami lead into an 18-point edge, sealing the win and ensuring the Heat would hold home court before the series shifts north. Game 3 is Friday in Philadelphia.

And now, the Heat will hope history holds — and the 76ers will hope it doesn’t.

Miami has taken a 2-0 lead in 18 previous series, including the first round this season against Atlanta, and won the matchup every time. The 76ers’ franchise has dropped the first two games of a matchup on 19 other occasions, never recovering to win the series.

The question going into Friday will revolve around whether Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid could be ready for Game 3. The league’s scoring champion and MVP finalist has, not surprisingly, been missed by the 76ers.

“We don’t have a big man right now,” Philadelphia head coach Doc Rivers lamented.

Adebayo surely isn’t complaining. He was 8-for-10 from the field and 8-for-8 from the line in Game 1; he followed that with a 7-for-11 night from the floor Wednesday.

It wasn’t just the absence of Embiid, though, that hurt Philadelphia. The 76ers were awful again from 3-point range, shooting 8-for-30.

Simmons surgery: Ben Simmons will have surgery Thursday to alleviate pain in his back caused by a herniated disk, the Brooklyn Nets said. The Nets said it was decided upon after consultation with multiple back specialists.