After the G1 loss to the Heat, the 76ers continued to challenge the Heat on the road, and as a result, the team not only failed to usher in a rebound, but the overall performance was even more disappointing.
Except for the 76ers, who briefly took the lead at the beginning of the game, the Heat were firmly in control of the situation the rest of the time, and finally defeated the 76ers 119-103 to win a 16-point victory and rewrite the series score to 2-0.
After the whole game, the 76ers could not hide 4 major shortcomings, and scored 4 points again in the second half, which also exposed Harden's strength, and Embiid became the only hope for the 76ers to turn the tables.
The first big short board: the thin bench
As early as the regular season, the 76ers bench was one of the team's shortcomings, lacking a stable scorer to be trusted.
In the G1 and G2 competitions, the 76ers' bench shortcomings were fully exposed, especially in this game matchup, the 76ers bench scored only 19 points.
On the Heat side, the bench exploded 52 points, including Oladipo, a substitute player, who scored 19 points, which was equal to the 76ers' entire team's bench score.
The second big shortcoming: the ability to finish with three points
The 76ers' three-point shooting ability is not good enough, but the regular season and the first round of the playoffs have not been short, and as a result, the 76ers' outside finishing ability is terrible in the game against the Heat.
In the G1 showdown, the 76ers shot only 6 of 34 three-pointers, shooting only a pitiful 17.6% from three-point range, and the G2 situation has picked up, shooting 8 of 30 from the field, shooting 26.7% from three-point range.
Coach Rivers admitted after the game that in terms of the opportunities the team got, the three-pointer of 8-of-30 shooting was unacceptable.
The reason for the 76ers' three-point decline comes from two aspects, on the one hand, the performance of the core players has declined, in this game, Harden is 1 of 5 three-pointers, Maxi is 1 of 4, and Danny Green is 1 of 9.
On the other hand, the role players lack stability, and Niang's three-point shot of 1 is much better than the 7 of 0 in the G1 game, but as a pure end, such a performance is still very bad.
The loss of the main force and the instability of the bench are the reasons for such a huge decline in the 76ers' three-point projection.
The third big weakness: defense and rebound protection
Throughout the game, the 76ers had no defensive malleability to speak of, allowing the Heat, a team that is not good at offense, to play well on the offensive end and blossom more inside and outside.
In particular, the Heat had big problems with rebounding protection, as the team's interior line was only used by Reed and Jordan Jr., forcing the team to spend a lot of time using small lineups.
The result was that the team lost 10 rebounds in the whole game, which gave the Heat a lot of second offense opportunities.
Rivers echoed this after the game, admitting that he would not blame Jordan Jr. and Reed because the two had tried their best.
As Rivers said, Jordan Jr. was carrying only a $590,000 contract, Reid was on a $2.2 million contract, and the team couldn't ask the two to do too much.
The fourth major shortcoming: Harden continues to slump
A "dog" team, in order to win the game on the road, the core of the team must deliver super-level performance.
As a result, Harden once again exposed the level, after scoring only 4 points on 5-on-1 shooting in the second half of G1, Harden scored another 4 points in the second half of G2, without any aggression and presence to speak of.
As a result, the 76ers did not pose a real threat to the Heat throughout the game, and even though Maxi scored 34 points, the scene was still firmly controlled by the Heat.
From the existing 4 shortcomings, it is not difficult to see that the 76ers can only expect Embiid to return, which is likely to change the situation of the series.
According to the team reporter John Clark, Embiid is currently recovering from injury and is optimistically expected to return at G3 or G4.
Although Embiid's eyes and fingers still feel pain, as long as the concussion problem is solved and the alliance is allowed to play, then Embiid will wear a mask to fight.