76ers out to deliver final blow to Heat

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia 76ers coach Brett Brown spent the weekend studying the mindset of teams down 3-1 in hopes of getting a read of what the Miami Heat might bring to their potential elimination Game 5 on Tuesday night at Wells Fargo Center.

“Everybody’s trying to break somebody’s spirit,” Brown told reporters Monday at the 76ers’ practice facility, when discussing Erik Spoelstra’s preparations with the Heat. “It’s always the same thing. It happens on the other side of it. And I know Spo, who is a great coach, would be in his locker room saying, ‘All we got to do is win a game and come home.’

“They’re going to live in a really isolated, sort of zoomed-in world of, ‘Let’s just win a game. We won a game last time we were here,’ and just come home and figure it out. You can see it. And when you study the 3-1 series, and I have all weekend, you know, you see different things that you’re mindful of.”

Philadelphia guard J.J. Redick said he did not need to go to the video tape, having lived through what has grown into an increasingly contentious best-of-seven, opening-round NBA playoff series.

“You’re feeling each other out and then later on in the series you have to deliver a crushing blow. You have to finish that,” the veteran 3-point specialist said. “A team like Miami, their culture, their organization, their group of guys, they have fighters, they have warriors on their team.

“Every game in this series has been tough and there’s no expectation that Game 5 will be any different. It’s going to be a tough game.”

Brown said it is about keeping it intense, but also keeping it simple.

“I think that the defensive side of things is always number one for me and then just the discipline of team basketball offensively is a really close second,” he said.

Brown said his video study of previous 3-1 situations was not to instill fear among his team, with a Game 6, if needed, at 7 p.m. Thursday night at AmericanAirlines Arena. A Game 7, if needed, would be back in Philadelphia Saturday.

“My intention is not to speak anything into existence, it’s all about trying to help the team win,” he said.

Brown said with a clean game, nothing like the 76ers’ 27 turnovers in Saturday’s Game 4 victory in South Florida, it won’t require a repeat of Saturday’s fourth-quarter heroics.

And yet, he said it also is comforting to know that his team consistently has been able to push to another level in the series during fourth quarter.