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Heat-Sixers score: Miami continues strong start to the season, hands Philly first loss at home in wild game

Just a few days into the season, the Miami Heat went to Milwaukee and completed a 21-point comeback to beat the Bucks — a win that looks even more impressive now than it did at the time. A few weeks later, they took a trip north of the border and came away with an overtime win over the Toronto Raptors. On Wednesday night, their travels brought them to Philadelphia, where they once again secured an elite road win, this time over the 76ers

What do all of those wins have in common? Besides just being impressive victories over other top teams in the Eastern Conference, those games were the first home loss for all three of those teams. Through the first two months, the Bucks, Raptors and Sixers are a combined 36-6 at home, and the Heat are responsible for half of those losses, which is a good way to illustrate just how strong of a start the Heat are off to this season. They moved to 20-8 with their 108-104 victory over the Sixers, which has them all alone in second place in the East. 

Down by as much as 12 in the first quarter, the Heat stormed back in the second, outscoring the Sixers 37-19 in that frame thanks in large part to 11 points from Kendrick Nunn, who nearly matched the Sixers by himself. Coming out of the halftime break, the Heat continued their strong play. They were knocking down shots and having some nice success against a stout Sixers defense, but more important was their own play on the defensive end. Breaking out a zone defense, the Heat flummoxed the Sixers, who were left struggling to score even more than usual. 

“They’re good at the zone, they practice a lot and I think once we started figuring that out in the fourth quarter, things shifted and they had to get out of it, but we waited a little too long to start attacking it more,” Josh Richardson said. “You’ve just got to move the ball. You’ve got to get it to the high post, low post, and play inside-out or you’ve got to drive it. You can’t just stand with the ball over your head.”

The Sixers shot just 12 of 39 from downtown, but as Richardson noted, they did eventually start to break the Heat’s zone. When they did, it opened up a path for a wild comeback. Down by 16 early in the fourth, the Sixers stormed back with a flurry of 3s late in the game. After Tobias Harris knocked one down from the corner with 30 seconds left, the deficit was down to two points. Philadelphia even had a chance to tie after Nunn missed two free throws, but Al Horford’s last-second 3 didn’t go down. 

Miami escaped with the win, and only furthered established themselves as a real threat to the assumed power structure in the East. Heading into the season, the Bucks and Sixers were seen as the clear favorites, but the Heat — led by Jimmy Butler, who finished with 14 points, seven rebounds and four assists in his return to Philly — look like they’ll have something to say about that this spring. 

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