Takeaways from Heat’s blowout win in Philadelphia to keep slim hopes alive of escaping play-in

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 129-101 blowout win over the Philadelphia 76ers (52-28) on Thursday night at Wells Fargo Center to improve to 2-0 on its three-game trip. The Heat (43-37) is right back at it on Friday against the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) to wrap up its final back-to-back set of the season:

The Heat still had something to play for and the 76ers didn’t. It very much looked like that on the court.

The 76ers entered already locked into the Eastern Conference’s No. 3 playoff seed, but the Heat entered with the possibility of finishing anywhere from sixth to ninth in the East.

Despite already knowing their playoff position, the 76ers still played most of their regulars and had their leading duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden available. Starting guard Tyrese Maxey (neck stiffness) was the only member of the 76ers’ regular rotation who missed Thursday’s game.

But the Heat still dominated behind one of its most complete performances of the season to earn its third straight win and most lopsided victory of the season.

“We’ve just been focusing on us, our consistency, how we want to play and having that kind of reliable approach every night and our approach was very professional,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They’re in a different circumstance than us. Obviously, Maxey being out and they secured the third spot. But we don’t really care about anybody or anything else right now. We’re just focused on ourselves.”

The Heat led by as many as 33 points, with the 76ers final lead of the night coming late in the first quarter.

After the Heat’s lead ballooned to 26 points early in the third quarter, the 76ers tried to rally and cut the deficit to 13 with 1:59 remaining in the third period. But that’s the closest the 76ers got.

The Heat pushed its lead back up to 30-plus points in the fourth quarter.

The Heat’s offense continues to show signs of life, continuing a recent positive trend to score 129 points on 55.7 percent shooting from the field and 18-of-39 (46.2 percent) shooting from three-point range while committing just 11 turnovers on Thursday. The Heat also tied the franchise record for most assists in a game with 39, matching the mark it set in a win over the 76ers on Feb. 15, 1997.

Heat star Jimmy Butler again led the way with another ultra-efficient performance to close with 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field and 5-of-6 shooting from the foul line, three rebounds and six assists. He scored 14 points in the third quarter.

Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo contributed 14 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and eight rebounds.

The Adebayo-Butler two-man game was a staple of the Heat’s offense for most of the night, with Adebayo often screening for Butler and Miami running its offense through that action.

“It settled our offense, where you’ll be able to get something coherent out of it,” Spoelstra said of the Adebayo-Butler two-man game.

Heat guard Tyler Herro also was excellent with 24 points with the help of 5-of-8 shooting on threes, four rebounds and five assists.

While the Heat’s offense has been bad for most of the season, Miami has been a lot better on that end of the court recently. The Heat, which holds the 25th-ranked offensive rating in the NBA for the season, has the fourth-best offensive rating over the past 15 games.

A big part of that improvement has been a spike in three-point shooting efficiency. The Heat owns the league’s 26th-ranked team three-point percentage for the season at 34.3 percent, but has the fifth-ranked team three-point percentage over the past 15 games at 38.4 percent.

“Look, our game is built on what it’s built on offensively,” Spoelstra said. “We’re an attack team and I thought we did a great job of getting into the paint and our three-point shooting has been very good for the last 16, 17 games. I know that’s not a season-long sample size. But that’s more of the vision of what we were expecting.”

The Heat’s 2-3 zone also worked to bother the 76ers’ offense. Embiid finished with 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field.

This marks the Heat’s first three-game winning streak since early February.

“When we make shots, we’re tough,” Butler said.

A lot would need to go the Heat’s way, but a first-round playoff series between the Heat and 76ers is still possible.

Not only did Thursday’s win clinch the Southeast Division title for the Heat, but it kept alive the possibility of finishing as the East’s sixth playoff seed. The Heat is also now assured of finishing no worse than seventh place in the conference.

The bottom line is: With two regular-season games left to play, the Heat can finish in either sixth or seventh place in the East.

But to end in the No. 6 spot and avoid the play-in tournament that features the seventh through 10th-place teams in each conference, the Heat needs a lot to go its way.

The only way the Heat can enter the playoffs as the No. 6 seed is if it wins its final two regular-season games (at Wizards, vs. Orlando Magic) and the sixth-place Brooklyn Nets lose their final two regular-season games (vs. Magic, vs. 76ers). If these four results happen, the Heat would open the playoffs with a first-round series against the 76ers in a No. 6 vs. No. 3 matchup.

If each of these four results don’t happen, which is the more likely scenario, the Heat would finish the regular season in seventh place in the East and would need to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tournament.

In this case, the Heat would host a play-in game against the East’s eighth-place team (the Atlanta Hawks or Toronto Raptors) on Tuesday. It Miami wins that game, it would enter the playoffs as the No. 7 seed and take on the second-seeded Boston Celtics in the first round.

If the Heat loses the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play in game on Tuesday, it would be forced to take on the winner of the East’s No. 9 vs. No. 10 play-in game for the right to the eighth playoff seed. If the Heat won this, it would open the playoffs as the No. 8 seed and face the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round.

If the Heat lost both play-in games, it would not qualify for the playoffs and its season would end.

The Heat used its new starting lineup for the second straight game.

After debuting its new starting lineup of Gabe Vincent, Herro, Butler, Max Strus and Adebayo in Tuesday’s win over the Detroit Pistons, the Heat turned to that group again to open Thursday’s game against the 76ers.

As expected in a blowout win, the Heat’s starting lineup closed as a positive on Thursday to outscore the 76ers by six points in 13 minutes together.

Strus, who is the new addition to the starting lineup, finished the victory with 14 points while shooting 5 of 9 from the field and 4 of 8 from three-point range.

This five-man combination hasn’t been used much this season, entering Thursday with just 63 minutes played together through the first 79 games. But this lineup has been productive, outscoring opponents by 8.1 points per 100 possessions in that time.

That trend continued in Philadelphia.

The Heat’s bench rotation looked a little different, though.

While Tuesday’s starting lineup remained in place, the Heat’s bench rotation wasn’t exactly the same Thursday.

The Heat used a short three-man bench rotation of Kyle Lowry, Caleb Martin and Kevin Love in Tuesday’s win over the Pistons, but played five reserves to go with a 10-man rotation before emptying the bench late in Thursday’s rout.

Along with using Lowry, Martin and Love, the Heat played Haywood Highsmith and Duncan Robinson off the bench against the 76ers.

Highsmith finished with six points, four rebounds and two assists in 18 minutes. But Robinson played just one minute before re-entering late in the blowout win.

“It’s just something that we felt for tonight and it made sense for tonight,” Spoelstra said of playing a deeper bench rotation on Thursday. “Obviously, if it plays out in a positive way, that’s a good thing. But we wanted to wear on them, we wanted to make sure that everybody was playing their minutes as hard as you possibly could.”

Love played his third straight game in the backup center role after starting at power forward in his first 17 appearances with the Heat. He recorded seven points, six rebounds and four assists in 19 minutes.

Love also drew four charges in Thursday’s win, which is the most by a Heat player in a single game this season. He ranks second in the NBA in total drawn charges this season at 33 behind only Oklahoma City’s Jaylin Williams.

“You have to have the courage to do it,” Spoelstra said of Love’s ability to take charges. “But you also have to have the IQ defensively. You have to see plays develop before they happen and [Udonis Haslem] and Kevin both have that innate skill for that and the toughness to be able to take some hard hits. Those were not easy hits, at least two or three of them.”

After posting a plus/minus of plus-22 on Thursday, Love is now a plus-46 in the 84 minutes that he has played as a center with the Heat.

Those who remained out of the Heat’s rotation on Thursday included Cody Zeller, Victor Oladipo and Omer Yurtseven. Zeller had been used as the backup center since signing with the Heat during the mid-February All-Star break, but has received his first two DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision) of the season in the last two games with Love instead playing as the backup center.

It remains to be seen who the Heat will have available to play on the second night of its final back-to-back of the season.

The Heat played its regulars in Philadelphia, as rookie forward Nikola Jovic (back spasms) was the only player unavailable.

With the Heat already assured of finishing no worse than seventh place in the East, how hard will it go over the final two regular-season games with just a very slim chance of moving up to sixth place?

Spoelstra already said following Thursday’s win that Lowry will be held out on Friday against the Wizards on the second night of the back-to-back. Lowry has not played on both ends of a back-to-back since returning from left knee soreness on March 11.

Lowry, 37, missed the front end of the Heat’s back-to-back in Chicago on March 18 before playing the following night in Detroit and played on the front end of a back-to-back in Toronto on March 28 before sitting out the following night in New York. And Lowry will be held out of the back end of this back-to-back after finishing Thursday’s victory with 11 points, five rebounds and seven assists in 22 minutes.

The good news is the Heat has no more back-to-backs this season, with at least one day between play-in and playoff games.