Heat drops to eighth in East standings after loss to 76ers. Takeaways and postgame reaction

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 98-91 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers (38-30) on the back end of a back-to-back set Monday night at Wells Fargo Center to fall to 2-1 on its four-game trip. The Heat (37-31) closes the trip on Wednesday against the Cavaliers in Cleveland.

While both teams were missing key players because of injuries, it was the Heat that didn’t have enough on Monday.

It appeared that the game would be decided in the opening minutes of the second half, but it was instead decided in the final minutes because of a Heat comeback that fell short.

After entering halftime with a two-point lead, the 76ers began the third quarter on a 17-2 run to extend its lead all the way up to 17 points and break the game open just five minutes into the second half.

The Heat missed seven of its first eight shots of the third quarter and committed four turnovers in the first five minutes of the period. The 76ers went on to hold on to a double-digit lead for the rest of the third quarter before entering the fourth ahead by 14.

The Heat scored just 16 points on 5-of-21 (23.8 percent) shooting from the field and 3-of-10 (30 percent) shooting on threes while committing five turnovers during the nightmarish third quarter.

The Heat didn’t go away, though, using a big run of its own behind its press-zone defense to get back in the game.

The Heat began the fourth quarter with a 20-6 run to come all the way back and erase the 76ers’ 17-point lead, tying the score at 85 with 6:54 left in the fourth quarter.

But the Heat only scored six points the rest of the way, as the 76ers ended the game on a 13-6 spurt to hold on for the win. Miami shot just 3 of 15 (20 percent) from the field and 0 of 6 on threes during this stretch to close the contest.

“We struggled to score,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the team’s late-game offense. “We did have some looks. At that point, it becomes make or miss. You have to make those to make the full comeback and we weren’t able to do that. I thought we had a couple clean looks.”

With so many of its top offensive weapons out because of injuries, the Heat struggled to score for most of the night. Miami totaled just 91 points on 39.3 percent shooting from the field, 12-of-33 (36.4 percent) shooting on threes and 9-of-14 (64.3 percent) from the foul line while committing 15 turnovers.

The Heat’s season-long issues around the rim continued, too, finishing just 14 of 33 (42.4 percent) on shots from within the restricted area on Monday. The league average from that area of the court is 66.3 percent.

“We had some tough possessions offensively, either getting blocked or missing moments or missing some plays,” Spoelstra continued. “We’ll just have to get to work on that and improve on that side of the floor.”

The Heat posted its third-worst single-game offensive rating of the season in the loss, scoring 94.8 points per 100 possessions.

That was enough for the Heat to drop its first game of the season when holding a team under 100 points. Miami is now 10-1 this season in those games.

Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo finished with 20 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. But Adebayo was held scoreless and didn’t attempt a field goal or free throw in the fourth quarter, as the 76ers focused on packing the paint and keeping the ball away from him.

“A lot of moving parts to that,” Adebayo said when asked why he finished the fourth quarter without a shot attempt. “But that’s a Spo question.”

When asked about Adebayo going the entire fourth quarter without a shot, Spoelstra pointed to the 76ers’ defensive scheme.

“They were packing the paint like crazy, almost daring us to shoot from the three-point line,” Spoelstra said. “We had to shoot some of those just to keep them honest. Post-ups, there really wasn’t anywhere to go. Elbow catches or any kind of pick-and-roll to throw it back to him, there wasn’t anywhere to go because they were just sending multiple defenders into the paint.”

Terry Rozier scored 10 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter for the Heat, but finished the game an inefficient 8 of 21 (38.1 percent) from the field.

76ers guard Tyrese Maxey was the star of the game, closing with 30 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists.

Kelly Oubre Jr. added 22 points, 11 rebounds, three assists and five blocks for the 76ers.

While both teams very short-handed for Monday’s game, it was still a game that carried some significant implications in the Eastern Conference standings for the Heat and 76ers.

In fact, both teams were missing their best player. The Heat was without Jimmy Butler for a second straight game because of a right foot contusion and the 76ers were without Joel Embiid for the 22nd straight game after undergoing a procedure on his left knee.

Along with missing Butler, the Heat also remained without Nikola Jovic (strained right hamstring), Tyler Herro (right foot medial tendintis), Kevin Love (right heel bruise), Josh Richardson (season-ending right shoulder surgery), Cole Swider (G League) and Alondes Williams (G League) against the 76ers.

In addition to playing without Embiid, the 76ers were also missing Tobias Harris (sprained right ankle), Robert Covington (left knee bone bruise), Kai Jones (right hamstring strain), De’Anthony Melton (back) and Terquavion Smith (G League) against the Heat.

The result still mattered. with Heat and 76ers entering Monday’s game with the same 37-30 record. Miami entered in seventh place ahead of eighth-place Philadelphia only because it holds the head-to-head tiebreaker.

But the win moved the 76ers from eighth to sixth place in the East. The Heat dropped to eighth place and is now one game behind the 76ers.

The Indiana Pacers, which lost on Monday, fell from sixth to seventh place in the East — one-half game behind the sixth-place 76ers and one-half game ahead of the eighth-place Heat.

The goal for all three of these teams is to avoid the play-in tournament, which features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.

“Our guys really wanted, obviously, to get this game,” Spoelstra said. “We just weren’t able to get it done. ... It’s disappointing. But it’s not from an effort standpoint. Our guys laid it out there.”

After scoring a season-high 30 points and becoming the fastest player in NBA history to make 1,000 career threes on Sunday, Heat sharpshooter Duncan Robinson was limited by a back issue the next night.

Robinson finished Monday’s loss with just three points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field and 0-of-1 shooting from three-point range in 24 minutes. He left the game in the third quarter because of back discomfort and did not return.

The back was an issue for Robinson entering the game after logged 35 minutes the day before in Detroit.

“He couldn’t move coming into the game,” Spoelstra said. “Just the workload, everything last night, the flight or whatever. He just couldn’t move. But he’s a competitor and he was like whatever we need, I’ll be out there.”

With Robinson’s back bothering him, Monday marked the sixth game this season that he has finished without making a three-pointer.

“I just wanted to try to give it a chance,” Robinson said. “Unfortunately, I probably was more of a detriment than anything, which is disappointing. But, yeah, at a certain point, we just made a judgment call that I probably wasn’t going to help.”

With Robinson unavailable down the stretch, the Heat closed Monday’s game with a lineup of Rozier, Patty Mills, Caleb Martin, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Adebayo.

Adebayo continued his career-long streak of consecutive games with a made three-pointer, and he did it from a different spot this time during his first multi-three performance.

After making a three-pointer in three straight games for the first time in his NBA career, it didn’t take Adebayo long to push that streak to four games on Monday. He hit an open corner three-pointer off an assist from Haywood Highsmith with 5:54 left in the first quarter.

It marked Adebayo’s first three-point attempt and make from the corner this season. He’s now 2 of 15 on corner threes during his seven-year NBA career.

Adebayo then hit his second three of the night, this one from above the break, with three minutes left in the third quarter. He finished the loss 2 of 2 from three-point range, marking the first time he has made multiple threes in a game during his NBA career.

Overall, Adebayo is 6 of 19 (31.6 percent) from three-point range this season and 14 of 81 (17.3 percent) from behind the arc during his NBA career.

But over the last four games, Adebayo is 5 of 5 from deep after starting the season just 1 of 14 (7.1 percent) on threes.

While it’s still just about one three-point attempt per game, Adebayo is starting to show he’ll take the shot if teams continue to leave him open. He’s also proving he has the ability to make the shot.

The Heat faced guard Kyle Lowry for the first time since trading him in late January and Lowry played well.

Lowry made a positive impact in his first game against his former team since that trade, finishing Monday’s win with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field and 3-of-5 shooting on threes, four rebounds, one assist, two steals and one block in 35 minutes as a 76ers starter.

“I think the juice was that we understand that was a big game for the standings,” Lowry said after the game, downplaying any extra motivation he may have felt playing against the Heat on Monday. “We needed that win for standings purposes. I love and admire those guys so much and I still root for them, except for when I’m playing against them.”

Lowry, 37, made a few important shots in the clutch, too, hitting a three-pointer to put the 76ers ahead by four points with 3:09 to play and then making a layup to extend the 76ers’ lead to six with 1:36 remaining.

The Heat traded Lowry and a lottery-protected first-round pick to the Charlotte Hornets to acquire Rozier on Jan. 23. Lowry, who is a Philadelphia native, didn’t play in a game for the Hornets after the trade and agreed to a buyout to eventually sign with his hometown 76ers.

Lowry, who took nearly a month off between the trade to the Hornets and his first game with the 76ers, entered Monday averaging 7.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 41.2 percent from the field and 34.9 percent from three-point range in his first 11 appearances with Philadelphia.

“I think he’s still working his way back into a little bit of a rhythm and confidence level shooting the ball,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said when asked about Lowry during his pregame media session on Monday. “But he’s been really impactful ... with his IQ and veteran play and leadership.”