Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat feel they’re ready
Team confident going against 3rd-seed 76ers
MIAMI — Last February the Miami Heat had a league-high 13-game winning streak snapped.
In the first round of this season’s NBA playoffs, they will face the team responsible for breaking it. The Heat have an opportunity for payback when they open a best-of-7 series against the surging Philadelphia 76ers, who ended this regular season with 16 straight wins.
“They’re playing extremely well but streaks are meant to be broken, right,” Heat guard Wayne Ellington said. “They broke ours, if I remember, last year.”
Both teams are obviously completely different since that meeting Feb. 11, 2017. The Heat are back in the playoffs after narrowly missing last year, losing a tiebreaker to the Chicago Bulls for the No. 8 spot. The Sixers have been the talk of the league since the All-Star Break, having not lost a game in a month. It is their first postseason appearance since the 2011-12 season.
“We have to go in focused on ourselves and we can’t worry about what Philadelphia is doing right now,” Heat forward James Johnson said. “They’ve been playing well, as you can tell. But we’ve been trending in the right direction. I think we’re ready.”
The sixth-seeded Heat and No. 3 Sixers split their four-game season series. The teams played three times in a span of 23 days in February, with two games decided by two points or fewer. The Heat won the final meeting 108-99 in Miami before Sixers
closed the season by winning 17 of 18. The fifthseeded Indiana Pacers were the last team to beat them.
“Yeah, this is great competition,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “You look at our games. We split it 2-2. Every game went down to the wire. We had some crazy games where both teams had big leads, lost leads. This is what you want. The 3-6 matchup is usually very, very competitive.”
There has been no shortage of fireworks during their matchups, mainly the ongoing social-media feud between Sixers center Joel Embiid and the Heat’s Hassan Whiteside. Both have moved past their spats and are among the top centers in the league.
Embiid is listed as doubtful for Saturday’s Game 1 at Wells Fargo Center because of a fractured orbital bone and concussion he sustained March 28 against the New York Knicks. Embiid, who underwent surgery, has missed the final eight games of the season but is expected to return at some point during the series.
“It’s going to be a great series,” Whiteside said. “I think with that atmosphere, the Philly fans, they really love their team. This is their first playoffs in five or six years. The energy is going to be there and Miami’s going to have the energy. It’s going to be a great playoff series. I think it’s going to a lot of energy from both sides. It’s going to be a scrappy playoff first round.”
The teams last met in the postseason when the Heat defeated Philadelphia in five games in the 2011 playoffs on the way to their first of four straight NBA Finals appearances. Many of the Sixers, who are the secondyoungest team in the league, were still in grade school. Their roster includes 10 players who are rookies or second-year players.
The inexperience hasn’t prevented them from becoming one of the league’s most exciting teams. Forward Ben Simmons, the favorite to win Rookie of the Year, has developed after missing all last season because of injury. Embiid played at an All-Star level before being sidelined. The Sixers can also rely on the veteran leadership of guards J.J. Redick and Marco Belinelli, who have playoff experience.
“It’s going to be great,” Heat forward Justise Winslow said. “It’s going to be physical. That’s one thing I know. Both teams are going to fight. It should be a lot of fun. It’s going to be physical and it’s not going to be for the weak, mentally or physically. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”