Miami Heat vs Philadelphia 76ers Game 3 Adjustments

A wrap around from all of the second round matchups and potential adjustments we might see moving forward.

Joel Embiid is out. That is obviously the biggest adjustment that would swing the series around, but with Shams reporting that he is out for game 3 - the series is looking bleak for the 76ers.

Shams Charania @ShamsCharania

76ers are listing All-Star Joel Embiid as out for Game 3 vs. Heat on Friday.

The 76ers basically have to steal a home game 3 without Embiid and it hasn’t looked exactly promising with their last two games.

Philadelphia 76ers Adjustment

I was hyper-critical of starting and playing DeAndre Jordan since he hadn’t been a viable option on a real NBA team for at least 5 years. It’s not a sustainable strategy, and after seeing it for 2 straight games it’s just not working. Doc is clearly not going to abandon him so we will say to stick with that for the beginning of the 1st/3rd quarters and survive it.

Half Court Hoops @HalfCourtHoops

The pretty clear answer for the 76ers is to just go 5-Out small ball and pray you can outscore the Heat with an above-average James Harden. Jordan/Reed are not the answer so just switch everything against the Heat and hope you outscore them.

The main adjustment has to be small ball more, and Paul Reed in spurts if Bam is doing big-time damage. In the entire postseason, the 76ers have played lineups with no bigs for only 31 possessions. A super small sample size, but they have been +14.5 according to Cleaning the Glass - a quick rundown of the 76ers current options from the postseason.

DeAndre C: 60 Poss -56.7 Net Rating

Reed C: 174 Poss -0.5 Net Rating

No C (Small): 31 Poss +14.5

This is not difficult, you go with your best chances. Small-Ball & Reed.

Half Court Hoops @HalfCourtHoops

This is so rough I have to point it out. -Reed switches onto Vincent after being completely lost...why? -Niang preloads low, but where is he going? -Niang jumps out to rotate to the corner but then leaves the rim open...

I do not have a ton of confidence in Reed as the solution since he makes super simple mistakes that screw up a lot, but he will at least be reasonably playable against this Heat team.

Miami Heat Adjustment

It’s really hard to find many adjustments the Heat can make because they really have not had to adjust to anything the 76ers have thrown at them. The biggest things that stand out to me are cleaning up their turnovers on offense, and their zone attack.

They are currently turning the ball over 15% of the time, the same as the regular season but ranked 28th in the NBA. A part of their free-flowing offense like Golden State has these struggles, but the 76ers have been good at blowing up the hand-off action that Miami likes to go to.

In game 1 the 76ers played 36 possessions of 2-3 Zone with the Heat scoring 23 points on those 36 possessions, but in Game 2 the 76ers played 1 possession giving up 3 points. This is also an adjustment for the 76ers…why did they only play 1 possession of Zone after playing it successfully in game 1 for 36 possessions?

If you enjoyed this please consider subscribing and sharing!

Enjoy!

Coach Pyper