Sixers at Heat: 3 storylines to watch and how to stream the game

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The Sixers are 9-17 on the road. Monday night, they’ll be tasked with playing a Miami Heat team that’s 21-3 at home.

Miami has at least shown a little vulnerability at AmericanAirlines Arena recently, losing two of its last three home games. 

Here are the essentials:

When: 7:30 ET with Sixers Pregame Live at 7 p.m.
Where: AmericanAirlines Arena
Broadcast: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Live streamNBCSportsPhiladelphia.com and the NBC Sports MyTeams app

And here are three storylines to watch: 

More wildness in store? 

The Sixers’ last game in Miami, a 117-116 overtime loss on Dec. 28, was one of their wildest this season. They left regretting a costly missed dunk late by Tobias Harris and a disastrous turnover by Joel Embiid.

Embiid was tremendous outside of that mistake, scoring 35 points on 16 shots, including a step back three from the right wing over Jimmy Butler with a little over a minute left. 

‘It’s going to take some time’

In contrast to that performance, Embiid was poor Saturday night in the Sixers’ blowout loss to the Celtics. He turned it over four times in the first quarter and shot 1 for 11.

While conditioning hasn’t been an apparent issue for Embiid since returning from injury, Brett Brown pointed to rust as a factor. Embiid missed nine games after tearing a ligament in the ring finger of his left hand.

“It’s clear he hasn’t played much basketball lately, and it’s going to take some time,” Brown told reporters. “Even as good as he is, it’s going to take a little bit of time for him to get going again.”

The deadline looms

The Sixers’ roster may very well look different than it does now when they play the Bucks on Thursday.

Tonight’s game is their final one before the trade deadline, which is Thursday at 3 p.m. 

As rumors circulate, Brown said last Wednesday that he feels a responsibility to keep his players informed about any substantive information that might impact them.

It's somewhere striking a balance of being candid, being transparent and honest with them. … [GM Elton Brand] and I talk all the time about what I think we need and as a coach, what I'm feeling. He has his thoughts as well. But like the day-to-day stuff, communicating with the players, I'll do as much as I can and try to be just aware of the landscape … and share information as I see it.

We looked at players the Sixers have been linked to and the assets they have here.

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