Second-Easiest Matchup: Miami Heat
Season series: 2-0, Sixers (one more game on April 9)
The Philadelphia 76ers played the Heat in one of their first games after the Tobias Harris trade in a contest Joel Embiid missed due to injury, and it ended in a four-point win for Philly. All of the Sixers’ starters, including Embiid’s replacement Boban Marjanovic, scored in double digits. Brett Brown played five players off the bench, with each player seeing an average of 13.8 minutes of game time. The bench combined for 12 points in the game.
Like the Pistons, the Heat also rank in the bottom ten in pace, and they also rank 22nd in the league in turnovers per game with 14.9. The Sixers have plenty of players with active hands on the roster: Jimmy Butler steals the ball two times per game, tied for third most in the league, and if the Heat have loose handles, the Sixers will play fast, making it hard for Miami to keep up.
The Heat play a balanced brand of basketball: seven of their players average double figures but none of them average more than 20, and no single player takes more than 15 shots per game. They go deep, too: 11 players receive regular minutes under Erik Spoelstra, and they all average at least five points per game. The Sixers usually go nine deep, with the majority of the scoring coming from the starters, who make up the five double-figure scorers on the team.
Despite Miami’s balanced scoring, they have the 20th-best field goal percentage in the league at 45.2. They also boast the worst free throw percentage at 69.1. Despite having regular Sixer killer Kelly Olynyk on the roster, the team does not have enough firepower to keep up with Embiid, Harris, Simmons, and Butler over seven games.