The Philadelphia 76ers didn’t have a shot in Game 2… literally

Tyrese Maxey is something special.

After struggling to get things going in the Philadelphia 76ers‘ halfcourt offense, the 21-year-old Garland, Texas, native absolutely took over the second half on the way to a commanding 34-point performance in only his 20th career playoff game.

Unfortunately, Maxey’s might alone wasn’t enough to overcome a really good Miami Heat squad, and even with solid performances by Tobias Harris and James Harden, the Sixers still fell by a score of 119-103.

Why? Well, a lot of reasons, really; they’re still without Joel Embiid, the Heat made adjustments to their unusually porous Game 1 defense, and Georges Niang gave the team all of five points in ten minutes before fouling out, but the biggest reason why the Philadelphia 76ers are returning to the Wells Fargo Center down 2-0 is that the team’s collection of shooters couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from beyond the arc.

The Philadelphia 76ers just don’t have enough quality shooters.

The Miami Heat beat the Philadelphia 76ers by 16 points.

The Miami Heat hit six more 3s than the Philadelphia 76ers on one fewer attempt.

Six times three is 18; that, my friends, was the difference in this particular game.

How about some more numbers just for the heck of it? Outside of dunks, every field goal is technically a shot, right? How did the Sixers do from the field? Well, they actually weren’t too bad; the Heat made two more shots on six fewer attempts. The same goes for the free throw line; with Embiid gone, the Sixers were actually outshot from the line by Miami 25 makes to 19, even if their shooting percentage was higher, 86.4 percent versus 80.6 percent.

Sidebar: Technically, the Sixers’ bench was also outperformed by the Heat’s 52-19, but that stat is a bit misleading. Miami brings Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo off of the bench, which would be like the Sixer bringing Tyrese Maxey off the bench, so I’d take those numbers with a grain of salt.

Anyway, back to Philly’s woeful effort from beyond the arc, which, again, is the single biggest reason why they lost Game 2. Of the six players who attempted a 3 versus Miami – which is alarming in its own right, when you consider that 13 different players each logged at least one minute – only one, Furkan Korkmaz, went .500 on their attempts, which isn’t ideal when he only accounted for four of the team’s 30 total attempts. In 158 combined minutes of action, the staters went 4-23 from beyond the arc, with Danny Green having a particularly brutal night, going 1-9 from beyond the arc and 1-10 from the field overall.

And as for the bench? Well, other than Korkmaz’s efforts and a single 3 on three attempts from Georges Niang before recording his sixth foul, the team’s other six players didn’t even attempt a shot from beyond the arc and combined for six total points.

No matter how you slice it, that is not a winning formula.

So what can the Philadelphia 76ers do? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. The Sixers only had one bench player, Georges Niang, who shot 40 percent or better from beyond the arc during the regular season, and his shot has been less consistent than the Sixers winning series down 0-2 in a playoff series, so frankly, unless someone like Furkan Korkmaz or Shake Milton catches fire from deep, that problem will persist until the offseason. Let’s hope the return of Joel Embiid can magically make things work; otherwise, we might be planning summer vacations before summer even technically starts.