Powell exits early, Heat suffers costly loss to 76ers in play-in race. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 124-117 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers (33-26) on Thursday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena to close its quick two-game trip at 0-2. The Heat (31-29) now returns to Miami to begin a three-game homestand on Saturday against the Houston Rockets:
An ugly first half was too much for the Heat to overcome, and the result was a damaging loss in the play-in tournament race.
The Heat led for a total of only 38 seconds and trailed by as many as 16 points on the way to a seven-point loss to the 76ers on Thursday.
The 76ers’ leading duo of Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey set the tone at the start, scoring 31 of Philadelphia’s 36 points in the opening quarter.
After ending the first quarter with a one-point advantage, the 76ers dominated the Heat 37-22 in the second quarter to break the game open and enter halftime with a big 73-57 lead.
But the Heat responded with a strong start to the second half, opening the third quarter on a 24-7 run to erase the 76ers’ 17-point halftime lead in just seven minutes and take its first lead of the night at 81-80 with 5:09 left in the period.
“There were a lot more efforts in that second half,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It doesn’t guarantee anything. But just there in that second half, how many times did we hit the deck on a loose ball? Six or seven times. In the first half, there was hardly any of that. We definitely didn’t hit the deck in the first half, and they just beat us at our game. They ran us out of the gym in the first half.”
The 76ers were able to stabilize things to close the third quarter on a 19-10 run and take an eight-point advantage into the fourth quarter.
The Heat kept pushing, taking a one-point lead on a Tyler Herro three-pointer with 2:44 to play.
“I think we came out with a better disposition in the second half,” Herro said. “We were flying around for each other, making plays. Every loose ball, it felt like we had someone on the ground. We were a lot better on the boards. We just felt like our intentions were better in the second half.”
But the 76ers then finally took control for good, closing the game with a timely 8-0 run on two free throws from Maxey, a three-pointer from Kelly Oubre Jr. and a three-pointer from Embiid to earn the seven-point win over the Heat.
The Heat missed its final four field-goal attempts of the game after taking a one-point lead with just under three minutes to play. Herro missed two of the four shots, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Bam Adebayo missed the other two shots during this stretch.
“We got stagnant offensively,” Adebayo said of the Heat going scoreless for the final 2:44 of the contest. “We ran a certain play over and over again, and we were stagnant.”
Maxey led the way for the 76ers with 28 points, four rebounds, 11 assists and five steals.
Embiid added 26 points, 11 rebounds and four assists.
Oubre contributed 21 points, eight rebounds and three assists.
76ers rookie V.J. Edgecombe totaled 19 points, eight rebounds and four assists.
Adebayo put together a strong performance for the Heat, finishing with 29 points, 14 rebounds, three assists and one steal in 37 minutes.
But Adebayo left Thursday’s loss visibly frustrated, saying the Heat “didn’t play hard enough” in a first half that was too rocky to overcome.
“We didn’t play hard enough, bro,” Adebayo said when asked why effort was a problem for the Heat in a game with significant play-in stakes. “I mean, I don’t know how to explain effort. You can clearly see we weren’t making enough of an effort to get guys off the line, make multiple efforts.”
The Heat’s climb to get out of the play-in tournament this season just became steeper.
A win on Thursday would have pulled the Heat within one-half game of the sixth-place 76ers. A Heat victory also would have clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over the 76ers.
But instead, the Heat lost Thursday to fall further behind the 76ers in the Eastern Conference standings and the head-to-head tiebreaker between the two teams will come down to their final regular-season matchup on March 30 in Miami.
The eighth-place Heat (31-29) is now 2.5 games behind the sixth-place 76ers (33-26) in the East.
The good news for the Heat is the Orlando Magic lost to the Rockets on Thursday. So, the Heat remains one game behind the seventh-place Magic (31-27).
Miami only has 22 games left to play this regular season to try to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament for the first time in four years. The Heat has needed to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tournament in each of the last three seasons.
The NBA’s play-in tournament features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference. The Heat needs to finish among the East’s top six teams to clinch a playoff spot without needing to take part in the play-in tournament.
“I don’t want to be in that [expletive] no more,” Adebayo said of the play-in tournament after Thursday’s setback. “We’re better than being in the play-in for the last four years.”
If the Heat again ends up in the play-in tourney, here’s how it works:
The seventh-place team in each conference hosts the eighth-place team in a play-in game. The winner of this matchup earns the seventh playoff seed.
The ninth-place team in each conference hosts the 10th-place team in another play-in game. The loser of this matchup is eliminated from playoff contention, while the winner of this matchup goes on the road to take on the loser of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play-in game for the right to the eighth playoff seed.
Heat guard Norman Powell tried to play through another groin issue, be he couldn’t finish Thursday’s game after aggravating the injury.
Powell was added to the Heat’s injury report on Thursday morning, with the team listing him as questionable for the contest because of right groin soreness.
It’s a groin issue Powell started to feel even before playing 30 minutes in Tuesday’s loss to the Bucks in Milwaukee.
“I just think it’s something that’s built up over time,” Powell said Tuesday morning. “You know, just playing through it and trying to manage it. But yeah, it wasn’t one specific play where I was like, oh, I felt something go or whatever. The accumulative stress in that area.”
But like Powell has already done a few times this season, he tried to play through the injury on Thursday. Powell was used in his usual starting role, but he left the game with 4:46 remaining in the second quarter and did not return due to what the team labeled as a “strained right groin.”
Powell totaled three points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field and 1-of-4 shooting on threes, three rebounds and two assists in 10 first-half minutes before his groin issue forced him to exit the game early.
“We’re going to have to evaluate that when we get back in Miami,” Spoelstra said following Thursday’s loss. “It wasn’t that he couldn’t [play], it was that one slide against Maxey, and he overextended it. So that’s the same one that he’s been dealing with, and we’ll just have to see what it is.”
Powell, 32, has also been playing through lower back tightness in recent games.
“It’s really frustrating,” Powell said of his injuries. “But at this point in the season, I feel like everybody’s going through something. So it’s all about pain tolerance and management. For me, you guys know, I’m going to always try to push through, and I have a very high pain tolerance. ... I try to push my body as much as I can. It’s kind of crazy because coming [to Philadelphia] last time, I had the groin issue on the left side and now I’m dealing with the right. But just continuing to try to manage my body, take care of my body, and be able to be available as much as possible.”
Powell, who was the Heat’s lone All-Star this season, has missed 11 games this season and four of those absences have come due to groin issues. He missed three straight games from late October to early November because of a strained right groin and then one game in late November because of a strained left groin.
Powell is in his first season with the Heat after being traded to Miami in July. He’s set to become an unrestricted free agent this upcoming offseason, but he is eligible to sign an extension with the Heat before he hits free agency.
“We’re getting to know him as the months go by, and so he knows his body better than anybody,” Spoelstra said of Powell before Thursday’s game. “But we’re in constant communication with Norm and the trainers, and he was able to pass all the protocols yesterday and today.”
The Heat continues to stagger the minutes of its two top scoring guards.
With the Heat again going with its new preferred starting lineup of Davion Mitchell, Powell, Pelle Larsson, Andrew Wiggins and Adebayo on Thursday, Powell and Herro were again split up to begin the game.
Herro was part of a Heat bench rotation that also included Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware, Kasparas Jakucionis and Simone Fontecchio against the 76ers.
Herro, who has now played as a reserve in his first four games back after returning from a rib injury following the NBA All-Star break, finished Thursday’s loss with 25 points, four rebounds and seven assists in 32 minutes.
But Herro again didn’t play much with Powell. In fact, Herro didn’t play alongside Powell at all before Powell left Thursday’s game early.
Herro and Powell have only shared the court for a total of 15 minutes in the Heat’s first four games since the All-Star break. Miami has been outscored by 11 points in those 15 minutes that Herro and Powell played together since the break.
Herro started Thursday’s second half in place of the sidelined Powell, and could need to return to the Heat’s starting lineup if Powell is forced to miss time.
The Heat also only used the double-big look of Adebayo and Ware for 34 seconds on Thursday.
No team in the NBA has played more road games than the Heat so far this season. But the Heat now returns to Miami for an extended stretch at home.
The Heat is tied with the Denver Nuggets, Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets and Sacramento Kings for the most road games played this season (32).
The Heat is 14-18 away from home this season.
But the Heat now returns home to play seven of its next eight games at Kaseya Center. In fact, 13 of the Heat’s final 22 regular season games will come in Miami.
The Heat now must find a way to take advantage of this upcoming stretch in its schedule, which is far from a given. Miami is 17-11 at Kaseya Center this season, but has lost four of its last six home games.
“It’s very important,” Jaquez said of the upcoming stretch. “We got seven of eight at home. It’s going to be a great time for us to make a stand and make a push and win some games.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2026 at 9:29 PM.
