SIXERS NEWS

Coming off an embarrassing loss to the Toronto Raptors, a matchup with Miami's big three at Miami offered little hope for the Sixers and that despite the fact that the Heat came in struggling a bit. Still, like the last meeting between these two teams the Sixers made a game of it. In fact they out shot Miami from the field and from beyond at 47% and 40% respectively and out rebounded them 40-39. Unfortunately they also killed themselves at the line, shooting just 57% while shot nearly 80% from the line and that's probably where they one game. That especially evident during crunch time when Miami was able to go to the hole and get their points when they had to while the Sixers could not. Evan Turner was also blanked for the 2nd game in a row which didn't help matters. Jodie Meeks with 21 and Thad Young with 11 did try to pick up the slack off the bench but it wasn't enough. Andre Iguodala also 20, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists, and Elton Brand returned from his suspension to provide 12 and 8 rebounds but it was all a futile effort.

Early on Miami jumped out to an 8 point lead at the end of 1 quarter. The Sixers trailed by as many as 12 at one point in the 2nd quarter before Meeks came off bench for 18 quick points to spark a Sixer rally that saw them cut the lead to 4 by the half. The inspired Sixers trailed by just 2 heading into the 4th quarter but that's where everything got away again. Where Miami was able to raise their game pull out a nice lead, the Sixers, already playing at their peak, could only stand and watch. Eventually after a bunch of drives to the hope by Lebron the Heat were able to claw their way to a 9 point win, 99-90. For the Sixers it's their 13th loss of the season and another tough pill to swallow, as they continue to rapidly run out of time to find some kind of consistency before everything is too far out of reach.