MIAMI — The Philadelphia 76ers began this week firmly entrenched in eighth place in the East and unsure when Joel Embiid would return.
Now, after pulling off a dramatic comeback and beating the Miami Heat 109-105 on Thursday night at Kaseya Center, winning a second straight game with Embiid back in the lineup thanks to a 15-3 run to close the game, not only has the league’s reigning MVP returned, but an escape from the play-in games is suddenly very much in play.
“It was a tough environment and it was a team that’s super athletic and physical that had [us] up against the ropes and kept on swinging, and we somehow got out of there,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said afterward. “That thing looked at times like it could have gotten away from us at times.
“But I thought that we stood in there and we did it through a lot of intensity and pressure.”
It was a level of intensity and pressure on both sides reflective of a playoff game — and, for all intents and purposes, this was exactly that. Had Philadelphia lost, it would have been three losses back of the Heat and two losses back of the Indiana Pacers — the teams that entered Thursday’s action in sixth and seventh place in the East standings, respectively — with five games to go, and would have lost tiebreakers with both of them.
In short? The 76ers would have had the final 10 days of the regular season to prepare for the 7-8 play-in game, one they would have been playing either back here on the shores of Biscayne Bay or in Indianapolis against Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers.
But in a game that featured several wild swings, including multiple double-digit runs in both directions and Miami outscoring Philadelphia by a combined 21-4 over the final minute of the first three quarters, it was the 76ers — led by Tyrese Maxey‘s 37 points, 9 rebounds and 11 assists after missing the previous two games with hip tightness, plus 29 from Embiid and 18 from Kelly Oubre Jr. — who found a way to pull it out in the end.
As a result, Embiid — who played 32 minutes Thursday after playing 29 in his first game back in Tuesday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder — could have a chance to get a full week off before the playoffs, presuming Philadelphia is able to get up to the sixth spot in the standings, which would have the added benefit of Philadelphia avoiding having to face the Boston Celtics until the Eastern Conference finals.
Embiid, though, said the team’s landing spot isn’t his concern.
“We don’t care where we end up,” Embiid said. “For me personally, I didn’t have to come back, but I want to play. I love playing basketball, and I want to be on the floor.
“[But] it doesn’t matter. Obviously I would rather not be in the play-in, but that’s the situation we’re in. If that’s where we end up, that doesn’t change. The goal is to go out there and try to win every single game. So it doesn’t matter when we end up.
“I think we have a pretty good chance. We just need to find a way to get on the same page, and I need to find a way to get back close to where I want to be.”
Even though Thursday was just his second game back, Embiid was already showing some signs of rounding into the form he had back in the first half of the season before getting hurt, when he was on pace to become the second player in the history of the NBA — along with Wilt Chamberlain — to average more points than minutes played for a season.
Embiid had 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting in the first half, and midway through the third quarter was 11-for-18 from the field, including pulling off a finger roll and a floater in the lane. But even though he missed his final seven shots, he was able to be a force in the paint defensively, helping contribute to a very rough night for Heat center Bam Adebayo, who had 14 points on 15 shots and was a game-worst minus-29.
“I just felt a little bit better than that first game,” Embiid said. “I mean, you could see it in the first, really the first two quarters and part of that third quarter, and then I just ran out of gas.”
Now, the goal for Philadelphia is to keep winning, as the 76ers have a closing stretch that ranks among the weakest in the league, with four of their final games against below-.500 opponents and the final three coming at home. But, after Thursday’s win, a path out of the play-in is possible.
“We’re just trying to find a way to win games while everybody’s out, but just get healthy and then we can figure it out,” said Kyle Lowry, who played his first game back in Miami since being traded earlier this season, referring to Tobias Harris, De’Anthony Melton and Robert Covington all sitting out. “But, for right now, we just continue to get better as a group day by day and continue just to fight and try to get wins, as many wins as we can rack up.”
