Jimmy Butler reacts to leading Heat past Joel Embiid, Sixers on the road

PHILADELPHIA–The Miami Heat paid a visit to the Wells Fargo Center on Monday riding a four-game losing skid. They have been having a tough season shooting the ball and they haven’t been able to get consistent production from their role players.

This was a matchup the Philadelphia 76ers were looking to use in order to get back in the win column. Instead, they had a tough time containing Jimmy Butler and it resulted in a 101-99 loss to the Heat.

Butler torched the Sixers all night long as he had 23 points on 9-for-14 shooting, 11 rebounds, nine assists, and four steals. He made an incredibly tough reverse layup to give the Heat the lead for good at 100-99 with 1:28 left and he made some terrific defensive plays as well.

“Just being Jimmy,” said coach Doc Rivers. “He does everything. We would’ve taken that shot. That was an unbelievable shot he made. Overall, it was defended well. I thought we defended him pretty well overall, but he still made plays. I thought our zone was really effective, but Jimmy kept getting to the middle.”

There wasn’t much the Sixers could do with Butler as he was getting to his spots and he was a problem for Philadelphia all night.

“A battle of two good teams,” said Butler. “I did my job. We did our job. We gotta start stringing these things together though. We got them again in, I don’t know, 72 hours how many hours, 48 hours. We want to do the same thing.”

Butler was able to outduel Joel Embiid who had 27 points and 12 rebounds for Philadelphia. It looked like the big fella was going to lead the Sixers to a win as he put a good move on Bam Adebayo with the Sixers down by one.

However, Adebayo made a helluva recovery and he blocked Embiid’s shot attempt.

“Joel is a tough cover for anybody,” said Butler. “So to block his shot, to attack him on the offensive end, you gotta give to him. MVP type player. He’s been doing that for a very long time and to get some stops on that dude in crunch time, it’s big time.”

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Story originally appeared on Sixers Wire