Two NBA Conference semifinals reached Game 5 on Tuesday. The Miami Heat beat the Philadelphia 76ers 120-85 at FTX Arena in Miami in the East while the Phoenix Suns defeated the Dallas Mavericks 110-80 at Footprint Center in Phoenix in the West.

Both the Heat and Suns are leading 3-2 in their respective series after Tuesday's wins. Since 2000, over 70 percent of the teams that won Game 5 ended up winning the series. If that is not concerning enough for the 76ers and Mavericks, the ways they lost on Tuesday night were much more disturbing than the results.

The Heat sidelined Kyle Lowry and replaced him with Gabe Vincent in the starting lineup after Lowry's continuous underperformance on offense in the East semis. Moreover, the return of Dewayne Dedmon off the bench enabled the team to match the opponents better in size.

Despite the changes, the Heat's defensive tactics were not much different from those in the previous two games. They allowed Joel Embiid to receive the ball in the high post but would do everything possible to shut him out of the paint. If Embiid attempted to go deep into the paint, his defender would try his best to disrupt the passing lanes and sometimes Embiid would be double-teamed even if he didn't have the ball.

Even a passing master like James Harden found it extremely difficult to feed Embiid the ball in his preferred spot. When Harden dribbled outside the 3-point line, he usually faced a single defender. No help defense would come unless Harden crossed the free throw line. If another 76er set a pick, the Heat's defenders would switch or go around the screen to contain Harden's passing.

The Heat's defense is not perfect and the best solutions to beat it is for Harden to destroy his defender in isolation or for the 76ers' shooters to make enough open 3-pointers. However, neither happened in Tuesday's game. As we have said many times, today's Harden is no longer the historic isolation scorer he once was after a hamstring injury took away much of his explosiveness. Meanwhile, the 76ers shot 9-of-32 from downtown, only encouraging the opponents to close in and throw more bodies at Embiid.

As a result, Embiid only took 12 attempts from the field. He made all four shots under the hoop but missed five of the other eight jumpers. The rest of the team committed too many turnovers trying to pass him the ball and the Heat scored 23 points via these turnovers.

The series is going to Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia for Game 6 on Thursday.

One thing the Mavericks and 76ers had in common on Tuesday night was that they both crumbled during a certain period of the game and then the game was long gone. The Mavericks trailed the Suns by only three points (49-46) after the first half. But after Jaylen Brunson scored the team's 50th point at 10:19 in the third quarter, the Mavericks suffered over five minutes of scoring drought. Meanwhile, the Suns had a 17-0 run.

During that period, the Mavericks committed five turnovers and missed five field goals (FGs), including four beyond the arc. The team averaged only 8.9 turnovers in the previous 10 playoff games, but had 12 turnovers in the third quarter alone on Tuesday night.

One of the reasons for this was that the Suns knew exactly what the Mavericks wanted to do on every offensive possession. In fact, they put the Mavericks into a predictable rhythm with well-designed, suggestive defense from the first half. The Suns refrained from double-teaming Luka Doncic unless he drove deep into the paint or there were less than five seconds left on the shot clock.

Doncic had to work hard for every point under such circumstances. His passes were rushed, which resulted in the ball going to the wrong player or an inefficient pass to the correct player, setting them up for a difficult shot. Of course, some of the passes were intercepted as well.

As a result, the Mavericks only shot 32 triples in Game 5, much fewer than their average level of 41.4 in the previous 10 games. Making only eight of them was also far from the team's usual production of 15.9 at the 3-point line. Meanwhile, Doncic was not in his best form either on Tuesday night as he hit 10-for-23 from the floor, including 2-of-8 from downtown.

By contrast, the Suns were much smoother on the offensive front. Not only did they do better in 3-point shooting than the Mavericks, they also shot to kill in the mid-range. Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges shot a combined 13-for-24 in this area. Paul only scored seven points, but the Suns didn't need to him to carry too much of the scoring responsibilities. His 10 assists were enough to run the team's offense.

If any of the Mavericks should be held responsible for Tuesday's painful loss, it has to be Doncic. His 28-point, 11-rebound performance wasn't bad, but not good enough to carry his team to victory. As one of the NBA's top three playmakers, Doncic has to change the opponent's defense with destructive isolation skills before he can get his teammates more involved on offense. When the Suns implement isolation defense on him, Doncic must make them pay by beating every defender guarding him one by one. That's what a superstar playmaker does and he has no excuse for failure.

Game 6 of the series will happen at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Thursday.