What’s behind the Miami Heat’s 7-13 start? A look at some of the issues through 20 games
This is not where the Miami Heat expected to be after 20 games.
Despite returning 13 players from last season’s roster that represented the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals last season, the Heat stands at 7-13 this season. Miami entered Tuesday with the third-worst record in the East and fourth-worst record in the NBA.
The Heat also owns the league’s fifth-worst offensive rating (scoring 105.9 points per 100 possessions) and ninth-worst defensive rating (allowing 111.5 points per 100 possessions). That has translated to a net rating of minus-5.6, which ranks 26th in the NBA.
The Heat is one of five teams with both an offensive rating and defensive rating that ranks 20th or worse this season, along with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves.
Defense was the topic of conversation following Monday night’s overtime loss to the Charlotte Hornets. Miami has dropped six of its past seven games.
“We’ve got to get stops. That’s the bottom line,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “You can play as much offense as you want. You have to get stops.”
Some of these early season struggles could justifiably be explained by injuries and COVID-19-related absences. But whether the roster has been short-handed or not, the losses still count and the Heat finds itself near the bottom of the standings with a quarter of the regular season already completed.
Next up for the Heat is a matchup against Bradley Beal, Russell Westbrook and the Washington Wizards on Wednesday at AmericanAirlines Arena (8 p.m., Fox Sports Sun).
Here are some of the issues that have hurt the Heat in the first 20 games:
▪ The Heat hasn’t had its core available for enough games yet.
Monday’s loss to the Hornets marked just the seventh game that the trio of Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic have all been available for this season.
In fact, Adebayo, Butler and Dragic have played just 33 minutes together this season. They logged 352 minutes of playing time together last postseason.
The Heat has posted a plus/minus of minus-12 in the 33 minutes Adebayo, Butler and Dragic have played together this season. But the expectation is that number will normalize and trend in a more positive direction as the minutes begin piling up.
Miami was a plus-83 with Adebayo, Butler and Dragic on the court during last season’s playoff run.
Adebayo has missed two games this season because of health and safety protocols. Butler has missed 12 games, two because of a sprained right ankle and 10 because of health and safety protocols. Dragic has missed five games, two because of health and safety protocols and three because of a left groin strain.
In addition, Heat starting guard Tyler Herro has missed seven games because of neck spasms.
Sometimes, the solution is as simple as just having your best players available more often. That would certainly help the Heat moving forward.
▪ Opponents are making too many threes against the Heat.
The Heat has allowed opponents to make a league-high 15.8 threes per game on the eighth-most efficient shooting from deep at 38.3 percent. Charlotte defeated Miami on Monday behind 21-of-41 (51.2 percent) shooting on threes.
Last season? The Heat’s opponents averaged 13.1 made threes on 34.7 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
“The NBA is just getting more and more difficult to figure out schemes,” Adebayo said of opponents’ three-point shooting success this season. “We’ve got to guard our yard. It’s just boiling down to defense at this point. Our defense has to be so good that we can have a bad shooting night and still win.”
Miami’s defensive system is set up to limit shots at the rim, but it also tends to give up a lot of three-point attempts.
The shot profile of Heat opponents this season indicates that defensive philosophy of protecting the paint is in motion. Miami is limiting opponents to the second-fewest shot attempts per game from inside the restricted area (21.7) while also allowing opponents to average the second-most three-point shot attempts per game (41.3) in the NBA this season.
It’s still relatively early in the season, so the opponent’s three-point percentage could come down as the sample size grows. But this is definitely an area worth monitoring because allowing a high percentage of threes to be made as part of a defensive system that leads to a lot of outside shots is not an ideal combination.
▪ High-turnover games are limiting the Heat’s offensive efficiency.
Miami is committing the second-most turnovers in the NBA at 17.2 per game, and it also owns the league’s highest turnover rate (percentage of plays that end with a team turnover) this season at 17 percent.
As a result of those empty possessions (and a few other issues), the Heat is averaging the fewest shot attempts in the NBA this season at 82.4 per game.
Making this issue even more painful for Miami, opponents are scoring a league-high 22.1 points per game on Heat turnovers this season. That’s because about 58.5 percent of Miami’s turnovers have been live-ball mistakes.
As a comparison, opponents scored 17.9 points on 14.9 Heat turnovers per game last season.
▪ Offensive rebounding struggles have also contributed to the Heat’s low shot attempt number.
Miami has been one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the NBA this season. The Heat has the league’s second-worst offensive rebounding percentage (the percentage of available offensive rebounds a team grabs) at 22.1 percent to begin the season.
Opponents have outscored Miami 11.7-9.3 per game in second-chance points this season.
The combination of the Heat’s turnover issues and its lack of offensive rebounding will usually result in the opponent finishing with more shot attempts, which tilts the math in the other team’s favor. Miami has finished with more shot attempts than its opponent in only four of its first 20 games this season.
▪ Surprisingly, the Heat’s three-point shooting has not been efficient.
Miami has averaged 13.1 made threes on 35.1 percent shooting from deep this season, a team three-point percentage that ranks 24th in the NBA.
Why is that surprising? The Heat returned most of last season’s roster, which finished with the second-best three-point percentage at 37.9 percent last regular season.
Considering the Heat is averaging the eight-most three-point shot attempts in the NBA this season, it views its outside shooting as a strength and has made it a big part of its offense.
Miami is 2-11 this season when making fewer than 15 threes in a game.
Heat forward Duncan Robinson is still shooting an efficient 41.6 percent from three-point range on 8.3 attempts per game. But Kelly Olynyk (40.6 percent last season to 33.9 percent this season) and Herro (38.9 percent last season to 31 percent this season) are two of the players who have contributed to Miami’s three-point shooting struggles this season.
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 12:21 PM.
