Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Whiteside a no-show
On night full of emotion, center’s lack of input lands him on bench
PHILADELPHIA — Everyone knew Philadelphia was without star center Joel Embiid for Game 1 on Saturday night with a broken bone near his eye. What you didn’t know is the Heat would be without Hassan Whiteside.
Oh, Whiteside started in the Heat’s 130-103 loss in Game 1. Sort of. He played. Sort of. He just delivered the kind of wayward performance the Heat fear and led coach Erik Spoelstra to repeatedly bench him in favor of Kelly Olynyk.
And why wouldn’t Spoelstra? Olynyk was everything Whiteside wasn’t. He put his fingerprints on the game with a gamehigh 14 first-half points. He answered key moments. Most of all, he showed the fullscale effort Whiteside didn’t.
No, the Heat didn’t lose just because of Whiteside. They got run out of the building by a faster, more athletic Philadelphia team. But Whiteside’s lack of input shifted the night. He’s the one unique piece they have. And Saturday they didn’t have it again.
By the third time Whiteside was pulled quickly for Olynyk, after an abbreviated stint early in the third quarter, he got a quick and stern message from Spoelstra while walking to the bench. He took his seat talking to teammates with palms up in a shrugging, what-can-I-do mode.
He could do more, for starters. He had two points on 1-of-4 shooting at that point.
Whiteside’s the one unique piece the Heat have. And Saturday they didn’t have it again.
He had six rebounds. But the Philadelphia player he matched up with to start the second half, forward Ersan Ilyasova, had 14 rebounds at the end of three quarters.
Playoff nights like this are when you learn about your team. You learned Josh Richardson couldn’t shake Philadelphia guard Ben Simmons, who you learned was the best player in the series.
You learned why Heat forward James Johnson is so valued, and you learned how smart Philadelphia was picking up Atlanta rejects Ilyasova and Marco Belinelli late in the year.
And while you didn’t learn that Whiteside lacks an intensity gear too often — that’s been an ongoing issue — you did learn that even the playoffs’ start didn’t make that problem go away.
Embiid is expected to come back from a broken facial bone at some point this series. Will Whiteside come back?
If he can’t make Philadelphia pay for going smaller, it’s hard to see how he fits in a series built on Philadelphia’s fast-paced game and three-point shooting. He has to dominate the small lineup the 76ers play, if he’s to play at all.
He made them smart Saturday. By the end, he sat through another fourth quarter, though this wasn’t a case of Whiteside delivering an expletive-laced rant when he sat at the end. He sat on full merit on a night where every other player’s emotions seemed ratcheted that might higher.
Part of Saturday’s story were these emotions. Just not from players, suggesting it will be a bruising series. But Philadelphia fans who haven’t had a playoff game in years created an atmosphere as subtle as a punch in the face.
“Trust the Process,” fans repeatedly chanted before the game, the slogan for their tanking philosophy (didn’t Spoelstra invent the “process” years ago?)
“Who?” fans chanted after each Heat starter was introduced.
The 76ers finished the regular season 26-1 at home. That stat gets underlined this series since the Heat had lost 11 of 13 road games coming into Saturday.
Philadelphia coach Brett Brown said this in-game atmosphere is back to the best days of the 76ers when “you felt Philadelphia. You knew were in for a fistfight coming in here.”
It felt like that Saturday. That’s the playoffs. You’d say Whiteside has to learn that kind of intense play is needed if Saturday wasn’t just an extension of the past couple of seasons’ issues.
When it wasn’t Olynyk, rookie Bam Adebayo came in and tried to energize the team at center in a way Whiteside didn’t. Or couldn’t.
Brown said before the game, “I feel like this first game is like the first round,” he said.
First round to Philadelphia.
The question becomes whether Whiteside shows on Monday for the second round.