Miami Heat leads NBA in clutch games. Is that a good or bad thing? A closer look
.JPG "Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, right, argues with referee Pat Fraher, left, during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Phoenix Suns in Phoenix, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023.")
The Miami Heat is on track to do something only one other NBA team has done in the last decade. But it’s still up in the air whether that accomplishment would be a good or bad thing.
The Heat has played in a league-leading 27 clutch games (one that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter) and is on pace to close the regular season with 55 clutch games. Four of the five games during the Heat’s successful 3-2 West Coast trip fell into the clutch category, as it narrowly avoided a clutch game in Friday night’s 104-96 win over the Phoenix Suns to close the trip.
“Does this count as a blowout for us?” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra joked following the eight-point win in Phoenix.
The only team that has closed the regular season with 55 or more clutch games since 2010 was the 2016-17 Washington Wizards that played in 55 clutch contests that season.
“If you’re a Miami Heat fan, you should love our games,” Spoelstra said with a grin, as the team returns home to begin a four-game homestand on Sunday against the red-hot Brooklyn Nets that have won 13 of their last 14 games (6 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). “It’s going to come down likely to the very last shot.”
Playing in so many close games isn’t a terrible thing, but it usually isn’t a great thing either.
The NBA’s best teams are often dominant enough to avoid a high number of clutch situations. The team with the league’s top record, the Boston Celtics, has played in the second-fewest clutch games this season with just 15.
The glass-half-full perspective is that playing in a lot of close games means the Heat usually has a chance to win. Miami has just five double-digit losses this season, which is fewer than the league-leading Celtics’ six double-digit defeats.
But the bottom line is there’s only so much control teams have over the result of games when they come down to a handful of possessions in the final minutes. The preferable route is to avoid those situations, which could sometimes be decided by chance, by holding a bigger lead entering the final five minutes of the game.
“Yes and no,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said when asked if he enjoys playing in clutch situations. “I don’t ever like to be in close games. I rather win by 20 so we don’t have to worry about getting nine stops in a row and all that stuff. Yes, we are capable of it. But I do like those games because you’re going to need those because games aren’t going to be blowouts come playoff time. We just got to figure out a way to win.”
A look back at NBA teams that have finished the season with more than 50 clutch games shows those teams usually don’t make it too far in the playoffs and sometimes don’t even qualify for the postseason.
There have been 12 teams that have finished a season with more than 50 clutch games since the start of the 2010-11 campaign. The last one to do it was the 2017-18 Heat, which was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Philadephia 76ers.
Among those 12 teams, seven closed with winning overall records and five ended with losing overall records.
Also, six of those teams made the playoffs and the other six did not. Of the six teams that advanced to the postseason, three were eliminated in the first round, one was eliminated in the second round, and the two teams that survived the longest were the 2015-16 Toronto Raptors and 2010-11 Oklahoma City Thunder that made it all the way to the conference finals before having their seasons ended.
“Obviously, we want to win those games,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said when asked if he views the high number of clutch games as a good or bad thing. “But I think playing in those games will be good for the playoffs. I think a lot of games in the playoffs will come down to the wire in close games and you want to just go through every situation in the regular season, so you’re prepared for the playoffs.”
With many of the Heat’s games decided in the final few minutes, it very likely needs to win most of its clutch games to stay above .500 and have a chance at avoiding the play-in tournament.
History has made that clear, as six of the seven teams that closed with winning overall records while playing more than 50 clutch games since the start of 2010-11 also finished with winning clutch records. The five that ended with losing overall records recorded losing clutch records.
That correlation has held true with the Heat, which sits above .500 in the clutch at 15-12 and above .500 overall at 21-19 this season.
“I’ll think it tests our team morale when you play tight games like that,” Heat forward Max Strus said. “They’re like make-or-break situations and we’ve battled through them all, we’ve learned from a lot of them and we’ve won a decent amount of them. So I think they’re good for us. They’re good to learn who we are and see us come together as a team. Then it’s going to be good in the playoffs at the end of the season when things get tight.”
The positive news for the Heat is it has been very good in clutch situations this season, entering Saturday with the NBA’s 10th-best clutch offensive rating (112 points scored per 100 possessions) and seventh-best clutch defensive rating (allowing 101.7 points per 100 possessions) for the eighth-best clutch net rating (outscoring teams by 10.3 points per 100 possessions).
The Heat’s clutch offense is much improved so far this season, as it finished last season with the NBA’s 24th-ranked offense in those situations with 101.1 points scored per 100 possessions. The defense is just about where it was last season when it allowed 100.8 points per 100 possessions in the clutch.
“We’ve learned a lot,” Strus said. “We’ve executed poorly on offense and then the next game fixed it and done it well. So we’ve definitely learned on both ends of the ball of what to do and what not to do.”
Ideally, though, the Heat wouldn’t need to sweat out so many close games because it was instead picking up more blowout wins.
The Heat played 38 clutch games last season to finish with a 23-15 record in those situations, a much lower number than it’s on pace to play in this season. That’s because Miami closed last regular season with 31 double-digit wins.
The Heat has had trouble pulling away from teams this season, with just five double-digit wins through the first 40 games for a pace that would have them at just 10 double-digit victories at the end of the regular season.
“Obviously, we would love to blow teams out every game if we could,” Heat forward Caleb Martin said. “But I think you just learn more.”
INJURY REPORT
The Heat’s injury report for Sunday’s game against the Nets includes 10 players.
Nikola Jovic (back), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (ankle surgery) are listed as out.
Martin (quadriceps strain) is doubtful to play.
Bam Adebayo (thigh bruise), Jamal Cain (G League), Udonis Haslem (Achilles tendinosis) and Herro (back spasms) are questionable. Cain is expected to join the Heat from the G League for Sunday’s contest in Miami.
Dewayne Dedmon (plantar fasciitis) and Gabe Vincent (knee) are probable.
This story was originally published January 7, 2023 at 12:49 PM.
