Sixers-Heat takeaways: Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey pairing thrives; offense struggles vs. zone

MIAMI — The 76ers responded well in a hostile environment.

While they must regain their rhythm, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey showed why they’re regarded as the NBA’s top pairing. And the Sixers must do a better job against the zone defense.

Those three things stood out in the Sixers’ 109-105 victory over the Miami Heat at Kaseya Center.

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The Sixers showed a lot of fight in a hostile environment. It was a physical game. Kelly Oubre Jr. was scratched in the face. Heat star Jimmy Butler was knocked to the court. And Embiid got tangled up with Miami center Bam Adebayo.

But the Sixers battled through the physicality and made clutch plays to pull out the victory.

“It was a team that’s super athletic and physical that we had them up against the ropes and kept on swinging,” coach Nick Nurse said. “And somehow got out of there. I think it looked, at times, it could have gotten away from us … But we stood in there and again, we did it with a lot of intensity and pressure.”

The Sixers took the lead for good with a 13-0 run, making it a 107-102 game with 1 minute, 33 seconds remaining.

Embiid and Maxey combined to score 66 of the Sixers’ 109 points. But they could have been more dominating. And their teammates could have done a better job of playing off them.

Maxey was great, finishing with game-highs of 37 points and 11 assists to go with nine rebounds. His two foul shots with 0.5 seconds left clinched the victory. Meanwhile, Embiid added 29 points, four rebounds, three assists, and one block in his second game back after left knee surgery. However, the reigning MVP missed his final seven shots and was minus-19 in 32 minutes, 40 seconds.

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It was obvious that the Sixers’ new additions must adjust to playing with the seven-time All-Star.

“It was OK,” Nurse said of the pairing. “I kept saying to myself, go a little more two-man action, I thought there wasn’t a ton. There were a couple of kick backs, a pick-and-pop three here and there. Usually, there’s an action and Tyrese will chance it, again.”

The Sixers (42-35) are happy they won the game, but Thursday showed that they’re very disorganized right now. They didn’t execute their offensive sets well. Taking advantage, the Heat (42-34) ended the first three quarters on runs. And as expected, Embiid was fatigued late in the game.

But Maxey took advantage of the opportunities provided by Embiid’s presence.

“I’m happy that he took care of his own business and made shots,” Embiid said. “He made them pay for the way they were guarding. I just didn’t think we played that well [as a team].”

The problem was the Sixers’ role players didn’t do a good job of playing off Embiid and Maxey. And that started to hurt the team, until Oubre scored seven of his 18 points in the fourth quarter.

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The Heat’s zone defense has always given the Sixers fits. And Thursday night was nothing different.

They struggled to make wide-open shots whenever Miami switched to it.

“We had a lot of wide-open looks,” Embiid said. “In the first quarter and the start of the second, I think we missed like six threes in a row, wide open. I missed two wide-open mid-range jumpers. And then [at the end] of the third quarter, and the beginning of the fourth, the same thing. We missed a lot of wide-open shots.

“So I don’t think the zone gave us any issues. We just didn’t make the shots when they were playing zone.”

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