Miami Heat To Miss Starter vs. Sixers For Play-In Game
The Miami Heat will be down a starter against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday.
On Wednesday night, the Philadelphia 76ers will welcome the Miami Heat into the Wells Fargo Center as they face off in the NBA Play-In stage, looking to secure their spot as the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference play-off picture.
When the two sides met throughout the season, they would split the set of the games, with the Heat claiming the opening two fixtures while the Sixers took home the last two.
Philadelphia is set to potentially receive a huge boost to their squad as Joel Embiid has been downgraded to questionable for Wednesday night, due to injury recovery. The reigning MVP’s potential absence comes after Nick Nurse decided to rest him in the Sixers’ regular season finale against the Brooklyn Nets last week, which was reportedly done as a ‘precautionary measure’ according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.
Elsewhere for the Sixers, De’Anthony Melton is set to miss the matchup, as he has been downgraded to ‘out’ as he continues to recover from the back injury which plagued the second half of his season.
This isn’t to say that the Heat will go into the match with a clean bill of health, as they are set to miss Terry Rozier after the Miami guard has been suffering from neck spasms as of late, which have kept them out of the final four games of the season.
The 30-year-old joined the Heat in the middle of the season, appearing in 31 games for the South Beach team, in which he’d average 16 points on 42 percent shooting. Rozier appeared in four matches against Philadelphia this season, in which he averaged 16 points and five rebounds.
The 30-year-old may not be the only one on the Heat bench, as Duncan Robinson has been upgraded to probable due to a back issue.
Similar to Rozier, Robinson sat out of Miami’s final four games of the season due to a back injury, having capped off the regular season averaging 13 points per game on 45 percent from the field.
The Sixers will take on the Heat on Wednesday night in the NBA Play-In stage with tip-off slated for 7:00 p.m. EST.
