Short-handed Heat upsets 76ers behind career night from Gabe Vincent. Takeaways from the win
The Miami Heat was without its top three scorers in Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro, but it did have some of its best three-point shooters on the court.
With only 10 available players because of injury issues, the short-handed Heat (17-12) still found a way to escape with a 101-96 win over the Philadelphia 76ers (15-14) on Wednesday night at Wells Fargo Center.
Three-point shooting was the Heat’s main source of offense, as it finished 18 of 44 (40.9 percent) from deep.
But the most important one of the night came off the hand of guard Gabe Vincent, who broke a 96-96 tie with a three-pointer to give the Heat a 99-96 lead with 39.4 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Kyle Lowry missed a step-back three to start the possession and center Dewayne Dedmon tipped the loose ball back to Vincent for the game-winner.
“We had the tip out, I had a look at the rim, I was open for a brief second and I tried not to hesitate like I didn’t the whole night,” Vincent said of his moment. “I tried to stay aggressive the whole night and I took my shots when they came and it was just another one of them.”
Vincent finished with a career-high 26 points on 7-of-12 shooting from deep and Duncan Robinson scored 21 points with the help of 4-of-11 shooting on threes. The Heat is now 6-1 this season when making 16 or more threes in a game.
“Gabe, in our locker room, was the player of the game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He obviously really made some big plays and big shots. That three [in the final minute] obviously was the biggest one of the night. But throughout the course of the game, he was really good defensively and then made some timely threes and plays that we needed.”
The undermanned Heat was in control for most of the night, leading by as many as 19 points in the first half and then opening the third quarter on a 20-6 run to pull ahead by 23 points.
The 76ers did not go away quietly, though, using a big 24-6 run to cut the Heat’s lead from 23 to five early in the fourth quarter.
The Heat responded, as P.J. Tucker quieted a loud Philadelphia crowd with a corner three to put Miami ahead by eight with 8:22 to play. After a Tobias Harris layup for the 76ers, Tucker then hit another corner three to push the Heat’s lead to nine with 6:59 left in the fourth quarter.
Those two threes helped to erase some of the 76ers’ momentum, but Philadelphia didn’t stop pushing. Harris made a corner three to tie the game, 96-96, with 1:24 to play.
That’s when Vincent hit his three to swing the game in the Heat’s direction.
The 76ers had a chance to tie it again, but Joel Embiid missed a three with four seconds left. Kyle Lowry was then fouled going for the rebound and went on to make two free throws to clinch the victory for the Heat.
“It’s a resilient win,” Robinson said. “We knew they were going to have a run. We had our run to kind of start the game and at the start of the third quarter. But that’s a good team. We knew they were going to make a run. It was just about weathering the storm and then making plays down the stretch.”
The Heat is now 5-3 this season in games without Adebayo and Butler.
The Heat continues its four-game trip on Friday against the Orlando Magic. Miami is 1-1 on the trip.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the 76ers:
Without Adebayo and Butler, the Heat needs to make threes to win. Miami did just that in Philadelphia.
The Heat finished 18 of 44 (40.9 percent) from three-point range, which has been a key part of its winning formula when Adebayo and Butler have been out. Miami has now attempted 40 or more threes in four straight games, and Adebayo and Butler have missed all of them.
In the Heat’s five wins without Adebayo and Butler this season, the Heat has shot 45 percent on threes against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Nov. 15, 47.1 percent on threes on Dec. 3 against the Indiana Pacers, 46.8 percent on threes last Wednesday against the Milwaukee Bucks, 44.2 percent on threes on Saturday against the Chicago Bulls and 40.8 percent on threes in Wednesday’s victory.
In other words, it seems like the Heat needs to shot 40 percent or better from three-point range to win without Adebayo and Butler.
Vincent and Robinson led the way, combining to shoot 11 of 23 from beyond the arc. Lowry made three threes, and Tucker and Max Strus each hit two each.
The Heat turned to its zone defense to bother the 76ers’ offense, and it worked.
Using a 2-3 zone look for most of the game, the 76ers were forced away from their usual offensive game. Not known as a high volume three-point shooting team, Philadelphia finished 12 of 37 (32.4 percent) from deep.
The 76ers entered averaging the fifth-fewest three-point attempts in the NBA at 31.7 per game this season. As far as making them, Philadelphia ranks 15th out of 30 teams in team three-point percentage at 34.8 percent.
“We do play our zone,” Spoelstra said. “We don’t play it every game. We don’t play it every situation. If they would have lit us up in the first half, we probably wouldn’t have played it as much. But we knew coming into this to not necessarily foul and get put into the bonus and play in retreat mode, that that may be something we had to go to a little bit tactically. We ended up having some success.”
The 76ers scored 40 points on 38 Heat zone possessions during Wednesday’s game. That’s an average of 1.05 points per possession, which would rank fifth-best among overall team defenses for this season.
Even without Adebayo, the Heat found a way to somehow slow Embiid.
Miami’s zone was responsible for some of that, but Dedmon also did a quality job in making Embiid work for his touches and position in the post.
Embiid, who is averaging 23.8 points per game this season, was limited to 17 points on 5-of-13 shooting. He scored just three points in the second half and went scoreless in the fourth quarter.
“It’s really hard,” Spoelstra said of defending Embiid. “Dewayne is an experienced defensive minded player, so that’s a good place to start with your defense and he got to some fronts and made him work in the first quarter and had some good defensive possessions in the second half.”
Embiid, who played against the Heat despite being listed as questionable because of rib soreness, took just two shots in the paint in the second half.
“He also didn’t look like he was necessarily 100 percent,” Spoelstra said of Embiid. “All of that contributes to this. Nobody feels sorry for us when we’re going through things. This is daily life in this association.”
How short-handed was the Heat? Seven of Miami’s 10 available players on Wednesday went undrafted.
The Heat’s 10 available players were starters Lowry, Vincent, Robinson, Tucker and Dedmon, with Strus, Omer Yurtseven, KZ Okpala, Marcus Garrett and Udonis Haslem coming off the bench.
The only three who were drafted are Lowry, Tucker and Okpala. Lowry is the only first-round pick in the group, as Tucker and Okpala were both selected in the second round.
“We knew guys were going to have to step up,” Spoelstra said following Wednesday’s win. “We didn’t necessarily know who the X factors would be. It’s basically our full roster is playing right now and you’re going to need to put your imprint on these kind of games and we had that tonight.”
Adebayo (thumb surgery), Butler (tail bone contusion), Herro (right quadriceps contusion), Caleb Martin (health and safety protocols), Markieff Morris (whiplash) and Victor Oladipo (right knee injury recovery) were all out for the Heat in Philadelphia.
Herro, who took a knee to his quad during the first half of Monday’s loss in Cleveland, will remain with the Heat on the trip and is considered day-to-day.
As a result, the Heat’s bench rotation looked a lot different than it normally would.
Okpala, who was out of the rotation when the roster was healthy, entered Wednesday’s game as Miami’s sixth man. He has played in eight of the past nine games because of the Heat’s injury issues after receiving 10 DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision) in the team’s first 20 games.
Then entered Strus, Yurtseven and Garrett later in the opening period.
It marked Garrett’s first first-quarter and first-half minutes of the season. The undrafted rookie guard was recalled from the G League on Friday as part of his two-way contract with the Heat.
Okpala finished with four points, two rebounds and two assists in 15 minutes.
Yurtseven recorded five points, three rebounds and four assists in 12 minutes.
Garrett ended the night scoreless, but grabbed two rebounds in eight minutes.
“Marcus played his role and did a really nice job in that first half, in particular,” Spoelstra said. “O gave us some good minutes in that first half, as well as KZ.”
Haslem was the only available Heat player who did not play in Wednesday’s game.
This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 9:33 PM.
