For three quarters last night, the Philadelphia 76ers with the help of 20,000 – plus fans made it a series again. By the end of regulation the Miami Heat reminded them that it really wasn’t.
Dwayne Wade shook of the migraine headaches and a bum shoulder for the night to score 32 points and grab 10 rebounds in a 100-94 Game 3 victory that puts Doug Collins and his Sixers at the door of elimination. Elton Brand, Jrue Holiday and Lou Williams paced the Sixers with 21, 20 and 15 points, respectively.
The Sixers stepped up their physical play, led by as many as 10 points including a 9-0 run to open the contest, and even held off a Heat spurt in the third quarter to go back up by eight points. They led 75-73 going into the fourth quarter.
Now let’s get into what went wrong:
– Sixers shot 35.0 and 38.9 percent in the second and fourth quarters
– Miami out rebounded the Sixers 15-5 in the fourth period including 8 offensive boards
– The Heat grabbed a total of 20 offensive rebounds
– Andre Iguodala despite a double-double was 3 for 10 from the floor
– Poor execution with the shot-clock winding down
– Thaddeus Young struggled offensively
– Outscored 48-34 in the paint
– In the most physical game of the series Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade played a total of 124 minutes and were called to a total of TWO personal fouls
– The Sixers allowed the Bosh, James and Wade trio to account for 75% of the Heat’s scoring
To quote Doug Collins, “If we score 94 points Sunday we may get lucky.”
The NBA is the most suspect league for giving their preferred teams and players and advantage. 2 fouls in a collective 124 minutes, are you kidding me!!! Coming off the referee gambling fiasco, they need to be careful with their credibility.
I agree Rastadoc, were not making any excuses but this is what the game has come to. Refs still bet on the games and the commish would love nothing more than to see the heat in the finals, sterns seeing $ signs. So I expected the sixers who are a lesser opponent not to get the calls.
Imagine if the sixers actually closed won this series, you know how much money the nba would lose. They’re not having that
on a sidenote,
Wonder what would happen if one of the 76ers Bench Coaches said it was too warm in the building/arena which affected their Shooting kinda of like the Phils Coach who said the cold weather was affecting their Team Hitting.. Philly teams has really gotten soft over the years,,,It’s sad, but true and the Flyers whining the other night over no calls .. .Play the damn games like Pros and stop all this BS whining and built in excuses…