The Philadelphia 76ers were “Zoned Out”

The Philadelphia 76ers fell to the Miami Heat at home on Wednesday night and the loss possibly gave opposing teams a strategy to defeat the Sixers.

The anticipation was high for the Wednesday night nationally televised game at Wells Fargo Center between the Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat. Storylines were plentiful going into it: the Sixers were 14-0 at home, coming off a lifeless 109-89 loss to the Brooklyn Nets, Miami returning to Philly after the 113-86 shellacking they took earlier this year, a game separating each team in the standings at the time, and of course Jimmy Butler playing in Philly is always a story.

By now you know that the 76ers fell 108-104, but the team famously failed to win in this one because of their inability to crack Miami’s zone defense.

The zone defense was implemented after Miami’s timeout at 7:28 left in the second quarter. The Sixers led 41-29 at that point in the game. After that it was all downhill for that quarter and eventually it became the hole the Sixers could not dig themselves out of. Miami went on a 27-7 run after that timeout and outscored Philly to 37-19 in that second quarter.

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Miami forced Philly’s into jacking-up shots from long range and the 76ers simply could not hit them. The Sixers went 3-13 from deep in the quarter. That included missing seven consecutive 3-pointers and a medley of them in about a 30-second span in the last minute of the second quarter. Zone coverage from the Heat continued throughout the rest of the game. If it’s not broke don’t fix it, right?

It felt like a college game because of the amount of zone that Philly was seeing. It was brutal to watch, because of how the 76ers could not knock down semi-open or even open looks from long-range. Not something fans want to see happen to their favorite NBA team or any team. Fans want to watch NBA basketball which is a better brand of basketball than the collegiate level. The struggles against the zone defense were new according to Brett Brown, or so he tells us.

Of course this is one game, but other contending teams could very well look at this game and incorporate the zone into their game plan when playing the Sixers. It’s not even like Miami played a suffocating Syracuse-esque 2-3 zone. They didn’t force Philly into their usual turnover ways, but it was effective enough to pull out the road victory.

Miami is a team that plays hard and is very switchable. There are other contenders similar or better than Miami that could mimic this defense. Teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors, Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers could implement this in a game or series against the 76ers.

It’s nowhere near time to jump off a cliff about this loss. The team is 20-9 and they are playing the marquee Christmas Day game against Milwaukee at home. Before then, they will play the next two out of three games at home as well. The defensive style used by Miami will be identified to me as the ‘Zone Game’ for obvious reasons. The Philadelphia 76ers need to shoot better from downtown and learn from this game.