Joel Embiid has been officially ruled out from the first game of the series, and it’s probably just a way for the basketball gods to even out a series that’s supposed to be a third seed versus a sixth seed. Fully healthy, the 76ers have a lineup conjured from myths, not reality. They passed 50 wins, and had an adjusted point differential of 4.3. But that understates how well they play when they use their starters. When playoff rotations shorten, this is crucial. Miami, however, was a game away from the No. 8 seed, and has a point differential near zero. Improbably, Goran Dragic made the All-Star team — presumably only for representation because they were one of the East’s best teams when players were selected — but outside of that, it’s tough to say they’re star-laden.

Even mediocre teams usually have one star. Miami is different, and you can see that in the below graphs. Philadelphia has a more typical curve when you look at who contributed to their wins. Their top players take most of the credit. But the Heat had a strikingly flat curve, reminiscent of the “mountains” of Florida. Ultimately, this is a negative sign for the Heat. They can’t ramp up their team by playing their best players. They’re all too similar in value.

— Justin Willard (@AcrossTheCourt)

Defensive matchups

There’s a reason why Ben Simmons is one of the top candidates for Rookie of the Year. As estimated by ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus, Simmons contributes about 3.4 points per 100 possessions, ranking in the top-10 among point guards and the top-30 overall. His play has improved as the season has progressed. Since the All-Star break, his true shooting has gone up from 54 to 59 percent (albeit in slightly lower usage). His rebounds and assists have similarly increased while his turnovers have lowered.

Simmons’s size and strength make him a tough matchup despite his relative inexperience. The Heat happen to have a number of long, athletic players who have the physical tools to keep up with him, but even then, it’s a challenge to find the optimal strategy to contain him.

Miami has certainly tried to make adjustments. The following animated chart shows how the Heat matched up defensively against the Sixers in each of their four regular-season games. The lines indicate the defenders who spent the most time guarding specific offensive players on a given possession. The thicker the line, the more frequent the matchup.

Justise Winslow, Josh Richardson and James Johnson are highlighted. Note how their roles as the primary defender against Simmons has changed from game to game.

In the first game, on Feb. 2, Richardson assumed the highest share of defensive matchups against Simmons, and the Sixers scored 36 points on these 29 possessions (1.24 PPP). In the following two games, Winslow took the lead, but the results were similar: 78 points on 63 possessions (1.24 PPP). James Johnson carried the torch in the last game with some success, as the Sixers tallied just 24 points on 37 possessions (0.65 PPP).

These samples are much too small to base entire decisions on: Johnson may have seemingly put the Heat in better position, but there’s no guarantee that it will continue, especially since defensive matchup data have their limitations. If anything, these numbers suggest that head coach Erik Spoelstra has the resources to try different things and use whatever works in his first-round series. Such flexibility is, in and of itself, potentially valuable.

— Positive Residual (@presidual)

Offensive styles

These charts are not meant to evaluate whether an offense is good or bad. They are designed to help illustrate how teams go about the goal of trying to put the ball in the basket. Each team’s offense is evaluated on four stylistic spectrums.

Ball movement is measured with the average touch time for each team, from the NBA’s player tracking statistics. A lower average touch time means the ball is moving from player to player more quickly.

Player movement is measured with a combination different tracking statistics, and works out to average distance traveled per 24 seconds of offensive possession.

Pace is measured with the average length of an offensive possession from Inpredictable, a more accurate representation for how quickly a team is working than traditional pace.

Shot selection is measured with MoreyBall percentage — in this case the percentage of a team’s true shooting opportunities that came at the rim, from the free throw line, or on a 3-pointer. It’s a generalized measure but captures something about how much each team hews to the shots that are, on average, the most efficient.

On the graph below you’ll see a line for each team’s offense. As the line moves away from the center of the graph on each axis you’re seeing more of that stylistic trait. For example, shot selection shows a (hypothetically) more efficient shot selection the further you are from center. Here’s how the 76ers and Heat match up.

— Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

Win probabilities

To project the series, I am using my in-season game projection model. The model is trained off historical game data, and accounts for rest, travel, team strength, and matchup. Since I began using the model to predict outcomes, I have been able to correctly identify the winner in about 70 percent of games.

The 76ers come into the series riding a franchise record 15-game win streak. And most of that streak occurred without one of the team’s two best players, Joel Embiid. With Embiid’s health for the first round in the air, I conservatively projected the series without Embiid playing. If Embiid does return for all or some of the series, expect the odds to shift even further in favor of the 76ers. As it stands now, the 76ers are given a 79 percent chance to win with just over 17 percent chance that the are able to sweep. The Heat’s best chance is if they are able to push the series to six or seven games as they won the series closer to 31 percent of the time when the series went six or seven games in simulation. Overall, the 76ers should be considered a good bet to win, but without Embiid the upset potential is a bit higher some of the other series.

— Jacob Goldstein (@JacobEGoldstein)