Second-half collapse and second-round exit
Sixers’ season, built on promise, comes to quiet end against Heat
PHILADELPHIA — Each year the Sixers reach the playoffs, you can count on one thing: They won’t get out of the second round.
Around here it’s a tradition like no other.
And so, it was Thursday, the Sixers collapsing in the second half of a 99-90 loss to the Miami Heat at Wells Fargo Center.
The season that began with so much promise and picked up momentum with the addition of James Harden crashed and burned, the Heat taking the bestof-seven series 4-2, marking the second straight year the Sixers have been closed out in their building.
Jimmy Butler did his former team in with a game-high 32 points to send the Heat to the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in three years, where they will meet either the Milwaukee Bucks or the Boston Celtics.
It’s the 22nd year in a row the Sixers have been unable to fight their way into the conference finals. The last time they did so, they reached the Finals where
Allen Iverson and Dikembo Mutombo lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000-01.
“We never got into any offensive rhythm throughout the game, not just the second half,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said. “In the second half the turnovers,
the sloppy play just killed us. I just didn’t like how we played. I didn’t like how we played the last
game. I didn’t like how we played tonight . ... I don’t know, I just thought … we had more.”
For much of the night the Sixers struggled.
It didn’t help when they lost
Danny Green, who’d been lighting it up beyond the arc to a knee injury. Green’s left knee was pinned beneath 280-pound center Joel Embiid, who rolled over him beneath the Sixers’ goal early in the contest. Green had to be helped off the floor.
The Sixers again lacked energy. They hustled in the first quarter and trailed by just 49-48 at the intermission. They limited Butler, who was killing them throughout the series, to just nine first-half points.
So outworked, overmatched, slow, uninspired and inaccurate with their shooting were the Sixers that, unlike the last time they were rolled from the playoffs, they couldn’t even blame the whole thing on a decision by one player not to attempt a late-game dunk.
“I know what Miami has,” Rivers said. “I get that. You can see that. They are athletic and big. I just thought we had more. I really did.”
The Sixers expected plenty this season, and so did their fans. They had a good team, remade it at the trade deadline, and seemed to have a better team. But as the Heat won the final two games of the series by a combined 44 points, it was vivid that the Sixers did not have the team they thought they had assembled.
How it reached the point where Rivers barely had enough championship-ready players to compete is a pro-sports riddle for the ages. The franchise spends money, regularly acquires star-level players, has been willing to change personnel executives, pays their coach $8 million a year and — don’t you know? — once made a five-year investment in lousy basketball in order to some day play the championship-level kind.
Yet somehow, they proved to be severely understaffed, less than healthy and in too many places inexperienced.
Joel Embiid, whose MVP candidacy and physical stress is eternal, was having difficulty catching the ball because of an unhinged thumb. And while he was shooting, he clearly was bothered by a protective face mask in place to protect his cracked orbital bone. With a chance to prove why he was so valuable, Embiid made just seven of 24 shots, spent the night being shoved around the lane and had a close look at why Bam Adebayo is making a strong bid to pass him on the list of top NBA centers.
James Harden, 32, was neither what he once was nor what the Sixers were expecting when they acquired him from the
Nets at the trade deadline, contributing 11 points and then griping that the ball didn’t come his way often enough.
Tobias Harris — he of the $180 million contract — proved only capable of adding one more exhibit of evidence that he is ridiculously overpaid. Tyrese Maxey, a developing
All-Star, was willing but not quite ready at age 21 to tilt a playoff series against the top-seeded team in the Eastern Conference.
From there?
Nothing.
Matisse Thybulle, a splendid defender, wasn’t ready to score at a championship level before he injured his foot. Afterward, he was useless at the offensive end, Thursday filling in for Green for most of the night and providing four points.
The Sixers tried to fool people all year with Georges Niang, a stand-still defender. Shake Milton played well Thursday, but has had enough chances to develop as a top-seven-in-the-rotation player and typically plays ordinary basketball.
Green can shoot, but left after four minutes with a knee injury.
And here’s an idea: Come back again with Furkan Korkmaz next year and see how that turns out.
“We tried to build a championship-contending team so fast,” Harden said, insulting the institutional knowledge of a fan base that has been waiting for one since 1983. “I still think we are just missing a few pieces. But we kind of went for it right away and just came up a little short.”
No, they didn’t have the talent to win. But they had the payroll to play hard on a night they were facing elimination. That was a reasonable demand.
“I’m confident in this team,” Rivers said before the game. “I like this team. But we have to go out and do it.”
Trust the process.