MIAMI — There were a few minutes late in the third quarter when you looked out on the court and saw this:
Justin Anderson. T.J. McConnell. Marco Belinelli. Ersan Ilyasova. Amir Johnson.
Mind you, this was Game 3 of an NBA postseason series, as close to a must-win as the Sixers have experienced in Brett Brown’s tenure as head coach, a game where they were finally at full-strength thanks to the return of their all-star big man. And this wasn’t some sort of makeshift lineup produced strictly by circumstance. It was emblematic of how they won.
After it was over, and the Sixers accomplished what they had set out to do — recapturing the home-court advantage that they’d given away the previous game — their head coach pointed to two of those names in particular.