MIAMI — The Miami Heat are one of the tougher teams to score on in the league due to the exotic and junk defensive schemes they will throw at a team to try and slow them down. The Heat will use a 3-1-1 zone, a matchup zone, and other different types of zone defenses and they were effective in a 119-109 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday.

The Sixers did a good job at times of finding a way into the zone and kicking out to open shooters, but Philadelphia shot just 41.7% from the floor and 12-for-38 from deep on the night. There were struggles on the offensive end at times and the Heat took advantage on their way to earning a must-win for themselves while also earning the tiebreaker over the Sixers.

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“They just run zone the whole game,” Tyrese Maxey said after the loss. “You know what I’m saying? It’s a good zone. They do a good job of it. When we penetrate it and kick and get open shots, it’s really good for us, but sometimes we get stagnant, pass the ball around the arc, and we gotta do a better job just getting cracking the paint, getting shot for each other.”

To Maxey’s point, the Sixers had some good moments when they were able to drive and kick. They scored 34 points in the opening quarter, but then had struggles the rest of the way. Philadelphia was able to generate a lot of good looks, but couldn’t cash in.

Maxey was 2-for-9 from deep, Paul George was 4-for-11, Joel Embiid was 2-for-6, Quentin Grimes was 2-for-5, and Kelly Oubre Jr. was 1-for-4. The opportunities were there, but the Sixers couldn’t convert and it led to some stagnant offense at times as they were moving the ball around the perimeter instead of attacking the paint like they should.

“It’s a little tricky,” added George. “They match at certain moments, and then they kind of just fly around and it does take you out of kind of a comfort zone. Typically, we run a ton of man offense, but in that situation, obviously, the man offense that we usually run, it throws a wrench in it a little bit. So, it just made us, I think, a little hesitant, and kind of took us out of our flow.”

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With that being said, when the Sixers were able to get into the paint and attack the Heat, it led to some easy buckets. Especially, for Embiid who was able to knock down some easy mid-range shots in the nail.

“It’s not tough,” Embiid said of the Heat zone. “For part of the game, once we started driving it, we started getting what we wanted, but at times, we didn’t execute that. Also, we missed a lot of a lot of good shots that we’d probably take. If they can’t guard one-on-one, they’re gonna go to zone, so they did that and, obviously, it affected us, and we gotta be better.”

The Sixers will look to bounce back when they pay a visit to the lowly Washington Wizards on Wednesday to wrap up their 3-game road trip.

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This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Multiple Sixers discuss struggles against Heat zone in road loss