Even after win Friday, Heat still 8-10 over past 18 games. What have been biggest issues?
The Miami Heat reached the midway point of the season at a 58-win pace. But a month later, the question is: Can the Heat get to 50 wins?
Since closing the first half of the season with a 29-12 record, the Heat has gone 8-10 to reach Saturday’s home matchup against the Brooklyn Nets with a 37-22 overall record. Things have been especially rough for Miami over the past few weeks, with a 3-7 record over the past 10 games.
“There are things that we have to correct and get better at,” coach Erik Spoelstra said Thursday. “This is the point of an 82-game season. You get tested and twisted, and pulled and pushed in a lot of different directions. And a lot of us are getting introduced to each other for the first time this season under adversity.”
Friday was a positive sign for the Heat, as it snapped a two-game losing skid with a 126-118 win over the Dallas Mavericks at AmericanAirlines Arena. It was only Miami’s second win in five games since the All-Star break.
Despite the Heat’s recent struggles, home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs is still well within reach. Miami entered Saturday with the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference, one-half game ahead of the fifth-place Philadelphia 76ers.
If the season ended Friday (and it doesn’t), the Heat would have home-court advantage in a first-round series against the 76ers. Miami has 23 regular-season games remaining, including Saturday’s contest against Brooklyn.
“I like this process,” Spoelstra said of getting the Heat through its current rough patch. “This speeds everything up. You get your back against the wall and you face a little bit of adversity together. I like to say you’re introducing yourselves to each other — the real you — when you get a little bit of heat under the collar. That speeds up the process of learning and getting acclimated.”
But Miami’s recent play has certainly been concerning. What exactly has gone wrong for the Heat during this troublesome stretch?
▪ Defense: The Heat has been working to improve its defense, which has been statistically mediocre, for most of the season. Miami holds the NBA’s 14th-best defensive rating (allowing 109.3 points per 100 possessions) and seventh-best offensive rating (scoring 112.3 points per 100 possessions).
This is an unusual spot for the Heat to be in, as it has finished with a top-10 defense in four consecutive seasons. The last time Miami finished a season with a top-10 offense was in the final year of the Big 3 era in 2013-14.
And the Heat’s defense has been especially bad during this current 3-7 stretch. Miami’s defensive rating is ranked No. 22 in the league (allowing 114.7 points per 100 possessions) over the past 10 games.
“For me the problems started before the trade [for Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill],” ESPN analyst and former Suns front office official Amin Elhassan said Thursday on “The Jump.” “If you look back prior to around Jan. 1, this team started having problems. One, the defensive efficiency slipping. They’re not defending with the same kind of fervor and energy they had earlier in the season.”
Why doesn’t the Heat have a top-10 defense this season? Is it personnel, scheme, execution or a combination of those things?
Rim protection is one problem, with Miami allowing opponents to shoot the NBA’s third-highest percentage on shots from inside the restricted area this season at 66.2 percent. The Heat doesn’t have a traditional rim protector like Hassan Whiteside to anchor its defense, which puts pressure on Miami’s perimeter defenders to prevent drives into the paint.
To Miami’s credit, opponents are only averaging 25.8 shots per game from inside the restricted area. That’s the fourth-fewest in the league, but teams have been very efficient when they are able to get to the rim against the Heat.
Also, teams have just started to make threes against the Heat.
For the season, Miami is holding opponents to 13 made threes per game on the second-lowest three-point shooting percentage in the NBA at 34.3 percent. But over this current 3-7 stretch, Heat opponents have averaged 16.8 made threes per game on 40.6 percent shooting from deep (third-highest opponent three-point shooting percentage in the NBA during this 10-game span).
That’s a difference of almost four made threes per game, which equals 12 points. That’s a lot.
▪ Late-game execution in close games has been an issue lately: Just take a look at the Heat’s last three losses entering Saturday’s matchup against the Nets.
The Heat led by five with 1:51 to play against the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 20, and lost.
The Heat led by 22 with 1:28 remaining in the third quarter against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday, and lost.
The Heat led by 12 with 3:59 to play against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday, and lost.
A “clutch” game is defined as a game that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. In those three losses, the Heat was outscored by a combined score of 50-27 in “clutch” time.
Miami is shooting 9 of 32 from the field, 1 of 11 on threes and 8 of 12 on free throws during this three-game span of “clutch” games. Meanwhile, the Hawks, Cavaliers and Timberwolves have combined to shoot 15 of 34 from the field, 4 of 11 on threes and 16 of 19 on free throws in the “clutch” during this stretch.
Aside from Bam Adebayo, who has scored 10 of Miami’s 27 “clutch” points on 4-of-7 shooting during this span of games, the rest of the Heat’s roster has combined to score 17 points on 5-of-25 shooting in the “clutch.” Goran Dragic has five “clutch” points on 1-of-5 shooting, Jimmy Butler has four “clutch” points on 1-of-6 shooting and Crowder has three “clutch” points on 1-of-5 shooting during this stretch.
“The biggest key for them especially offensively is going to be can they make enough plays,” former Heat assistant coach David Fizdale, who was fired by the New York Knicks earlier this season, said Thursday on “The Jump.” “Do they have enough playmakers, guys that can break you down off the dribble to make a play [or] make somebody else better? Do they have enough of that in their arsenal to get over the hump.”
“If you go back and watch those fourth quarters, teams switched a lot more in the fourth quarter. They start flattening you out. You got to be able to break a guy down one-on-one and go make a play. And that’s going to be the thing that decides for them whether they’re going to be good or not.
Winning a high percentage of close games usually isn’t sustainable over the course of an 82-game schedule (unless you’re the Milwaukee Bucks, which are 14-3 in “clutch” games this season). Since starting the season with an 11-3 record in “clutch” games, the Heat has posted a 3-9 record in those situations.
▪ The road has been a tough place for the Heat: For the team with the fourth-best overall record in the Eastern Conference, a 13-18 road record is underwhelming. And over the past 15 games away from home, Miami is 4-11 with losses to sub-.500 teams like the Washington Wizards, Knicks, Sacramento Kings, Hawks and Cavaliers included in that stretch.
But Miami is a dominant 24-4 at home this season. So, what’s the difference?
The Heat is just a much better offensive and defensive team at AmericanAirlines Arena. Miami is scoring 116.9 points per 100 possessions at home compared to 108.2 points per 100 possessions on the road, and allowing 106.9 points per 100 possessions at home compared to 111.3 points per 100 possessions on the road.
In other words, the Heat is an elite team at home. But Miami turns into an average to below-average team on the road.
This story was originally published February 29, 2020 at 11:43 AM.
