It was a big game. People said so on television and the radio. They said it over and over. They said it so many times, it was clear how badly everyone wanted to believe it -- as though the repetition might suddenly make it true.
Except it wasnt a big game. Not really. To suggest it was a big game was to suggest that the two teams playing had an equal chance of winning and that they were closely matched. That hasnt been the case with the Sixers and the Heat. The Sixers are about as much of an impediment to the Heats forward progress as fresh asphalt is to a steamroller.
The way people around here talk about the Heat when they come to the Wells Fargo Center -- or when the Sixers leave town and take their talents to South Beach -- its as though a real rivalry already exists between the two squads. It doesnt.
The Miami Heat played the Sixers at the WFC on Friday night. It went much the same way as many of the previous meetings between the two teams -- that is, the Sixers played the Heat close for a while. Then the Sixers lost.
Miami 84, Sixers 78.
We were like a deer in headlights, Doug Collins said about his teams ugly first-half effort. I dont know if Ive seen our team like that in a long long time. This is not the team that Ive known, and this is not the team were going to be.
You dont ever want to dig yourself a hole, but its sure nice when the guys know its not over.
NBA
Nice? More like a tease. If youre the sort that goes in for moral victories, Friday night was the game for you. At the end of the first quarter, the Sixers had 18 points, which wouldnt have been that bad if LeBron James hadnt put up 14 points all by himself. The Heat were up by as much as 29 points during the game before the Sixers went on a run in the fourth quarter and cut the lead to five.
Everyone in the Wells Fargo got excited. But that was as good as it got for the fans and the Sixers -- close, but not close enough. On a night when Norfolk State knocked off Missouri and Lehigh upended Duke, the Sixers couldnt pull off an improbable March upset of their own.
Theyre the cream of the crop in the NBA right now, as far as the big three, Thaddeus Young said. We definitely have to find some type of way to stop one or two of them and keep ourselves in the game and get a big victory.
It was almost like the Heat were toying with the Sixers -- allowing them to get back into the game before putting it away. Maybe the Sixers will one day measure up to the Heat. Maybe they'll figure out how to defeat them instead of just periodically bother them. For the moment, that seems like a long way off. The Heat have now beaten the Sixers in 10 consecutive regular season games.
The last time the Sixers beat the Heat was Game 4 of last years playoffs. That was a nice win for the organization, though it didnt appear to phase the Heat at all. As everyone remembers, Miami let the Sixers hang around in the pivotal Game 5 before winning the series. When it was over, and after Andre Iguoadala missed a crucial shot down the stretch, the Heat couldnt help but give the Sixers a quick kick while they were down. James used the postgame press conference that evening to give Iguodala what amounted to a dismissive verbal pat on the head before sending the Sixers swingman on his way.
"Those are the shots that I want him to take, the step-back jumper, the crossover jumper," James said. "I'm playing the numbers."
If James had put Iguodala into a headlock and given him a noogie, it would have been less painful for everyone involved. Even sadder: the humiliation wasnt a one-time thing. It wasnt restricted to that one moment in the playoffs. The Heat regularly mess with the Sixers when the two teams play. The Heat are like a group of older kids who are able to press outstretched arms against the Sixers foreheads and hold them off while they flail away in vain. Its at the point now where I half expect James and Wade to pin one of the Sixers down and make him slap his own head while they laugh and say stop hitting yourself.
E-mail John Gonzalez at jgonzalez@comcastsportsnet.com