Reality check: Heat cooked
MIAMI — The Process will prevail.
No, it’s not over. But does anybody really believe the Miami Heat can win three straight games against this young, talented Philadelphia team? Especially when the opportunity was there to tie up this series before Miami melted down at home in the fourth quarter for the second straight game?
The Heat trail 3-1 in this opening-round series after a second straight loss at home, this one by a much closer count of 106-102, which makes this even more maddening for the Heat.
The Heat saw their chance to make this a series disappear in a 19-1 Philadelphia run that spanned the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, turning the Sixers’ 10-point deficit into a four-point lead.
Now, Miami must do something it has done once in its history — overcome a 3-1 deficit to win Tom D’Angelo
D’Angelo
hurt Miami again. The Heat were outscored 27-19 over the final 12 minutes Saturday.
“We all feel that we’re this close,” Spoelstra said with his hands signaling the small distance he believes separates his team from the Sixers. “We played really good basketball through most of the game, but we’ve had a tough time finishing games against Philadelphia and that’s been the issue.”
Sixers point guard Ben Simmons led the rally with nine points and five rebounds in the fourth quarter. The rookie finished with 17 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists and four steals.
Philadelphia was able to overcome 27 turnovers and 7-of-31 shooting from 3-point range with an impressive rebounding performance. The Sixers finished with a 57-43 edge on the glass.
Dwyane Wade tried to will the Heat back late in the game with 12 fourth-quarter points, but it wasn’t enough. Wade scored a game-high 25 on 10-of-22 shooting.
Here are five takeaways from the game:
Sixers dominate on the glass … again: One of the biggest struggles for the Heat this series has been on the glass. That continued Saturday, and Philadelphia now has a 197-165 edge in rebounds and a 57-38 edge in offensive rebounds in the series. This advantage helped negate the Sixers’ turnover problems and poor shooting from 3-point range in Game 4.
“Guys got to box out and just get the ball,” said Heat center Hassan Whiteside, who finished with 13 rebounds. “It’s a big part of the game, the biggest part of the game, rebounding.
“You’ve just got to track the ball, you know. … That’s normally what I do. I just track the ball. With them shooting so many threes, a lot of times it’s bouncing out to the 3-point line. Those are the ones we struggle with.”
Heat missed too many free throws: In a game this important and this close, free throws are especially valuable. But the Heat didn’t make the most of their opportunities. Miami made 13 of 25 free throws Saturday. Just a few more made free throws could have turned this from a loss to a win. Miami is shooting 69.4 percent from the line in the series.
THIS is physical basketball: Game 3 wasn’t physical enough for you? Well, Game 4 was for you. The physical series continued Saturday with hard fouls, ejections and plenty of trash talk.
The tension was at its highest in the second quarter when James Johnson took exception to Robert Covington’s hard foul on Goran Dragic and pushed Covington into the stanchion. Simmons rushed in to defend Covington, which caused Johnson to get in Simmons’ face. Both players had to be pulled away from each other, with technical fouls called on Johnson and Covington.
At the same time as that skirmish, Miami’s Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson were down in pain after diving for a loose ball on the other end of the court. Winslow returned to the game after receiving four stitches for a cut over his left eye and Richardson returned after suffering a left shoulder contusion.
In the third quarter, Whiteside and Philadelphia’s Dario Saric were called for double technicals. All of this comes after the Heat and Sixers combined for 56 personal fouls and six technical fouls in Game 3. And we still have at least one more game left in this series.
“It was nothing. It’s just a physical game,” Dragic said of Covington’s hard foul, which led to the second-quarter skirmish. “It goes both ways. The only thing I saw when I stood up was J-Rich on the floor, so I kind of ran up there to see if he was OK.”
Whiteside finally makes impact: The Heat’s $98 million center was a non-factor in the first three games of the series. But Whiteside made an impact in Game 4, finishing with 13 points and 13 rebounds in 26 minutes. It marked the most points, rebounds and minutes he’s recorded in the series. Over the first three games, Whiteside combined for 11 points and 12 rebounds.
“He responded in a great way,” Spoelstra said. “That’s what I love about the playoffs. These are opportunities to grow, to develop your competitive character and the only way to develop that is to actually be in these type of playoffs. It’s intense. It’s emotional. You get uncomfortable. That’s what we all signed up for . ... But I was really encouraged with the way he responded to everything the last week.”
Sixers get sloppy, but it didn’t matter: The Sixers finished the regular season averaging the most turnovers (16.5) in the league. But it looked like Philadelphia had solved that problem, as the Sixers averaged 12.7 turnovers over the first three games of the series. The issue popped up again in Game 4, though, and Miami couldn’t take full advantage. The Heat scored 30 points off 27 Sixers turnovers. Richardson (7) and Dragic (4) combined to record 11 steals. Miami’s physical play made the game choppy and seemed to affect Philadelphia’s offensive flow. But the Sixers cleaned things up in the fourth quarter with three turnovers over the final 12 minutes.
“The fact you can win a playoff game with this volume of turnovers is mind-boggling,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said. “We settled down in the fourth period and the execution the team showed when it mattered with some pick and roll stuff offensively won us the game.”