Heat opens critical stretch with most lopsided home loss of season. Takeaways and details

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 119-96 blowout loss to the Philadelphia 76ers (40-21) on Wednesday night at Miami-Dade Arena to open a critical season-long six-game homestand, as the Heat fights to avoid the play-in tournament. The Heat (33-30) continues the homestand with another important game Friday against the New York Knicks:

The Heat’s frustrating up-and-down season continued.

The 76ers were missing their best player, with All-Star center Joel Embiid out because of left foot soreness.

But the Heat, desperate for wins as it works to avoid the play-in tournament, was dominated on its home court.

“We’ve shown that we can be the very best against anybody anywhere, and then we’ve also shown this,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

After the Heat ended the first quarter with a 38-34 lead, the 76ers took full control of the game by winning the second quarter 37-15 to enter halftime with an 18-point lead.

The Heat was never able to get back in the game, as the 76ers led by double digits for the entire second half. Philadelphia pulled ahead by as many as 25 points.

Two key areas the 76ers won on their way to the blowout victory: The 76ers outscored the Heat 45-21 from three-point range and 26-7 in transition.

With the 76ers going small in Embiid’s absence by opening with a starting lineup that included P.J. Tucker at center, the backcourt duo of James Harden and Tyrese Maxey led the way.

Harden (23 points, seven rebounds and five assists) and Maxey (27 points, four rebounds and seven assists) combined for 50 points.

The Heat shot just 20 of 56 (35.7 percent) from the field and 4 of 22 (18.2 percent) on threes in the final three quarters.

Bam Adebayo (20 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field, eight rebounds and two assists) and Jimmy Butler (16 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field, three rebounds and three assists) teamed up to score 36 points on 66.7 percent shooting from the field.

The rest of the Heat’s roster combined for 60 points on 20-of-57 (35.1 percent) shooting from the field.

To make matters worse, Butler left the Heat’s bench with about 10 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter to get treatment for right knee soreness.

“Just a little bit of knee soreness,” Spoelstra said. “We were down 25 at that point. He was just going to try to loosen it up, get a little bit of treatment. If we got it to under 10, I’m sure he would have been right back.”

So two days after earning a two-point win over the 76ers in Philadelphia with Embiid playing, the Heat lost to the 76ers by 23 points in Miami with Embiid unavailable. Wednesday went down as the Heat’s most lopsided home loss of the season.

It’s been that type of inconsistent year for Miami.

The Heat has lost five of its last six games and is 1-3 since the All-Star break.

“It’s been up and down this whole season,” Spoelstra said. “You can’t really explain that.”

After breaking out of its season-long three-point shooting slump for one game to earn a road win over the 76ers on Monday, the outside shooting struggles returned two nights later.

The Heat opened Wednesday’s game 4 of 8 from three-point range, but missed its final seven three-point attempts of the first half to enter halftime just 4 of 15 (26.7 percent) from beyond the arc.

It didn’t get better in the second half, when the Heat shot 3 of 14 (21.4 percent) on threes in the final two quarters.

The Heat finished just 7 of 29 (24.1 percent) from three-point range.

The full player-by-player breakdown of the Heat’s three-point shooting on Wednesday:

Gabe Vincent shot 0 of 7 on threes.

Tyler Herro shot 1 of 5 on threes.

Kevin Love shot 0 of 2 on threes.

Max Strus shot 2 of 7 on threes.

Victor Oladipo shot 1 of 2 on threes.

Caleb Martin shot 2 of 5 on threes.

Duncan Robinson shot 1 of 1 on threes.

“Even with Embiid out, we actually got less paint opportunities, less shots at the rim and less threes,” Spoelstra said, comparing Wednesday’s offensive performance to Monday’s offensive display in Philadelphia. “That really speaks to a lack of detail with the execution against a smaller team that’s going to try to switch and flatten you out.”

The Heat’s three-point shooting problem has been one of the biggest reasons behind the team’s regression this season. Miami holds the NBA’s third-worst team three-point percentage at 33.2 percent this season after finishing last regular season as the league’s most efficient three-point shooting team (37.9 percent).

Those shooting issues continue to weigh down the Heat, which owns the league’s fifth-worst offensive rating this season.

Even with the 76ers playing small in Embiid’s absence, Spoelstra stuck with essentially the same rotation he has used since play resumed after the All-Star break.

With the Heat using the starting lineup of Vincent, Herro, Butler, Love and Adebayo for the fourth straight game, the bench rotation again included Oladipo, Martin, Cody Zeller and Strus.

The Heat’s new starting lineup posted a negative plus/minus in each of its first three games together, entering Wednesday as a minus-22 in 45 minutes together.

In the lineup’s fourth game together, the group posted an even plus/minus of zero in 14 minutes together.

That’s an improvement from their first three starts, but the problem is each of the nine players in the rotation closed with a negative plus/minus. Even Duncan Robinson and Haywood Highsmith, who entered in the fourth quarter when the 76ers were already in full control, both finished with a negative plus/minus.

Not one Heat player was able to generate positive minutes on Wednesday.

Love closed with nine points on 3-of-5 shooting from the field, five rebounds and one assist in his home debut for the Heat.

The Heat was without four players on Wednesday, but one of them is taking a big step this week toward a potential return.

The Heat remained without Jamal Cain (G League), Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Kyle Lowry (left knee soreness) and Omer Yurtseven (G League) against the 76ers.

Cain is in the G League as part his two-way contract with the Heat. But Yurtseven traveled to Sioux Falls on Wednesday to join the Heat’s G League affiliate as the next step in his recovery from November surgery on his left ankle.

Yurtseven, 24, has yet to play this season because of his ankle issue. His return would give the Heat another backup center option, which is a role that Zeller has played well in since signing with Miami during the All-Star break.

“The most important thing is getting out there and doing that practice five-on-five,” Spoelstra said when asked what the team is hoping to see from Yurtseven during his G League assignment this week. “And then whatever happens in the games is going to be good. It’s been several months off from five on five. He’s really put in some really good work the last three weeks, including all the conditioning and court work and three-on-three work. This was the next step.”

Jovic was supposed to travel with Yurtseven on Wednesday to begin his own G League assignment in Sioux Falls, but those plans changed when the Heat determined Jovic wasn’t yet ready for the next step in his recovery. Jovic has not played with the Heat since late December because of a back injury

Lowry, who watched Wednesday’s game from the Heat’s bench, missed his 10th straight game because of left knee soreness. He continues to move closer to a return, but the team and Lowry are taking a cautious approach with the injury.

“Same process. But he’s making progress,” a coy Spoelstra said when asked where Lowry stands in his recovery.

The play-in tournament continues to be a very real possibility for the Heat.

With only 19 regular-season games left on its schedule, the seventh-place Heat stands 1.5 games behind the sixth-place Brooklyn Nets and 3.5 games behind the fifth-place Knicks in the East standings. With the Knicks winning their seventh straight game on Wednesday to extend their lead over the Heat, it’s looking more and more like sixth place is the best Miami can hope for at this point.

The Heat is also just 1.5 games ahead of the eighth-place Atlanta Hawks.

Finishing with a top-six playoff seed is important because it would keep the Heat out of the dreaded play-in tournament. The play-in tournament, which is done during the week-long window between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs, features the seventh through 10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.

After spending the final weeks of last regular season working to lock up the top playoff seed in the East, the Heat is simply trying to avoid the play-in tournament in the final weeks of this regular season. A lot has changed in the last 12 months.