By Tommy Matthews
Tyrese Maxey scored 27 points and James Harden 23 and the 76ers ran away with a 119-96 win over the Miami Heat.
Tobias Harris scored 18 points, while Paul Reed had 16 points, 14 rebounds and was plus-26 in 29 minutes for the 76ers, who played without their All-Star center; Embiid sat with left foot soreness.
The 76ers are 9-4 when Embiid doesn’t play this season.
“We are a versatile, deep basketball team. … Everybody who came in was ready,” 76ers coach Doc Rivers said.
Bam Adebayo scored 20 for the Heat, who beat Philadelphia on the road Monday but trailed by as many as 25 in the rematch at home. Jimmy Butler scored 16 for Miami before leaving in the fourth quarter with right knee soreness.
Philly was 15 for 39 on 3s; Miami — the NBA’s lowest-scoring team — was 7 for 29.
That was a huge part of the story, and so was the second quarter: Philadelphia outscored Miami 37-15 in that period, the best single-quarter differential of the season for the 76ers and the worst single-quarter differential of the season for the Heat.
Philly’s most lopsided quarter win, before Wednesday, was 18 points on three different occasions. The Heat’s worst quarter loss of the season had been getting outscored by 20 points against the Los Angeles Clippers — in a game Miami actually won.
Not this time. Miami got the lead down to 11 in the third quarter, before it ballooned back to 19 after three quarters and 25 when the 76ers opened the final period on a 6-0 run. It was 102-77 with 10:08 left when Butler walked down the tunnel toward the Heat locker room and didn’t return.
