The Philadelphia Sixers beat the Miami Heat 105-104 on Wednesday in the NBA play-offs and will face the New York Knicks in the first round of the play-offs. The French Batum and Embiid shone.
Led by Nicolas Batum and Joel Embiid, the Philadelphia Sixers beat the Miami Heat 105-104 on Wednesday in the NBA play-offs and will face the New York Knicks in the first round of the play-offs. Not yet eliminated, the Heat still has a chance to reach the play-offs: Miami will face the Chicago Bulls on Friday, who took out the Atlanta Hawks (131-116), for the last qualifying place in the Eastern Conference.
The NBA play-offs, one-off matches between four teams from each conference (ranked 7th to 10th place at the end of the regular season), make it possible to compete for the last two tickets for the play-offs. Embiid (23 points), who is still struggling to find his best form after missing two months due to knee surgery, accelerated in the second period to allow the Sixers, who had been trailing for a long time, to come back to the score.
Batum “star of the evening”
But the real “star of the evening”, according to his teammate Tyrese Maxey, was Nicolas Batum. The Frenchman from the Sixers chained three-point shots, scoring 20 points, including 17 in the second half. In the last quarter, it was Batum who allowed his team to get back in front for the first time. Then at the very end of the match, with 26 seconds remaining, it was he who made the decisive block to prevent Tyler Herro from scoring a three-pointer.
Philadelphia now has a meeting with the Knicks, second in the regular season in the East, starting Saturday for the first round of the play-offs. Finalist last year, the Heat, who will play for survival on Friday against Chicago, hopes that their star Jimmy Butler will not be injured, after a collision under the basket with Kelly Oubre, who fell on Butler’s right leg at the end of the first quarter time. Butler continued to play and scored 19 points, adding five steals. But he limped at the end of the match.
For the Heat, Tyler Herro was the game’s top scorer with 25 points. For their part, the Bulls were able to count on Coby White’s 42 points to more easily defeat the Hawks. Nikola Vucevic (24 points, 12 rebounds) and DeMar DeRozan (22 points) also helped the Bulls stay alive in these play-offs and try to reach the play-offs. The winner of the decisive match between Miami and Chicaco will face the ogre Boston in the play-offs: the Celtics finished well ahead of the regular season in the East and also the best team in the entire league.
