PHILADELPHIA — It’s Joel Embiid, not Jimmy, heading to New York this weekend in the playoffs.
Embiid and the 76ers battled back from a 14-point hole with a 105-104 win over Butler and the Heat in the Eastern Conference play-in to face the Knicks in the first playoff series between the teams since 1989. Round to advance to a first-round series against the Knicks at the Garden starting Saturday.
Embiid was out for more than two months before returning in early April due to maintenance on a knee injury, and his participation was in doubt, but he recorded 23 points and 15 rebounds.
Butler and the Heat still have a chance to face the league’s highest-ranked Celtics as the No. 8 seed if they can defeat the winner of the Hawks-Bulls game later Wednesday.
Butler scored 19 points and Tyler Herro scored 25 points for the Heat, but the Heat played without key midseason acquisition Terry Rozier (neck).
The second-seeded Knicks won 50 games in the regular season, including winning the season series in three of four games from the Sixers.
However, Embiid only appeared in one of those games, scoring 30 points in a 36-point rout of the Knicks in Philadelphia on January 5th.
