After a short wait, the playoff semifinals officially began, with a pair of matches in the East and West on the second gameday, with the Heat in the East taking on the fourth-place 76ers.
Before the game began, both teams suffered more or less injury problems, with the 76ers Embiid confirming his absence, and the Heat's Lowry also missing injured, but Butler, Hiro and Tucker all returned.
In the end, the two teams fought for three and a half quarters, and the last 4 minutes of the final quarter were reduced to garbage time, and the Home Heat easily beat the 76ers 106-92 to rewrite the series score to 1-0.
Throughout the game, the Heat did not show absolute dominance, with core Butler shooting only 5 of 16, with 15 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists.
Fortunately, the Heat have never been a team where stars decide the direction of the game, they rely more on team defense, lineup depth and bench Hiero.
In addition to Butler, Adebayor blasted down 24 points, 12 boards, 4 assists and 2 breaks to penetrate the 76ers' weak interior line, Hiro soared 25 points and 7 assists to play the role of killing the game again, Tucker scored 10 points and 7 boards, successfully limited Harden on the defensive end, and Vincent also contributed 10 points, 3 boards and 3 assists.
On the other hand, the 76ers exposed the lack of rotation lineups, and only Harden, Harris and Maxi scored in double figures.
Among them, Harris was the only player in normal form, shooting 11 of 18 from the field, handing over 27 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist, continuing the fiery performance of the first round.
Maxi, like the 76ers, was completely inaccurate on the outside line, shooting just 1-of-6 and getting 19 points and 2 assists.
Harden, who was highly anticipated before the game, once again played the typical data after joining the 76ers, shooting 5 of 13 from the field, getting 16 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists, and the overall performance was tepid, not good or bad.
This is also harden's consistent performance since joining the 76ers, since joining the 76ers, Harden has never made more than 20 shots in a single game, and the most one is 19.
While playing for the Nets this season, Harden made 12 single-game shots of 20+ shots, with a maximum of 25 shots per game.
This game completely exposed Harden's true level, and it can only be said that "Rocket Deng" has become a thing of the past, and it is difficult for him to play the scoring king-style dominance level performance again in a game.
Even during the Nets period, Harden's offensive aggressiveness and dominance could not be compared with the Rockets period, for many reasons.
There is the impact of the change of the league rules, and the impact of Harden's original hamstring injury, still with an injury, in short, it is unrealistic to want Harden to continue to play the role of the big core.
But Harden is still the absolute core of the 76ers after Embiid's absence, and he is also a real star, and his influence on the game is still huge.
It can only be said that Harden's influence is much greater than the data reflects, he is the only player on the 76ers who can handle the ball stably, and harden has done a good job in handling the ball against the Heat's online bag.
Unfortunately, the 76ers' shooters were all inaccurate, and the team's three-point shooting rate was only 17.6%, of which the end of the line, Niang, who won a lot of empty opportunities, shot 0 of 7 from three-point range.
After the game, coach Rivers also told the big truth, and he first made it clear that Harden could try more personal points.
But it also points out that if Harden wants to score more, teammates need to put him in the right position, and it's not just about Harden, it's about the whole team needing to do better on the offensive end.
Obviously, Rivers has long recognized Harden's true strength, he is no longer the absolute ball-holding core of the past, can ignore the defense to complete the attack, can override the system, the current he needs teammates to complete the end, so as to integrate into the system to give full play to organizational ability and offensive talent.