Heat ‘definitely not’ where it wants to be as midseason approaches: ‘We’re continuing to figure it out’
As the midway point of the NBA regular season approaches, the Miami Heat still isn’t where it wants to be.
There has been a six-game win streak and a 14-7 start to the season. But there has also been a five-game losing skid and eight losses in a nine-game span to negate that strong start and fall back to .500 at 15-15 before the Heat won five of its last six games to reach the 36-game mark at 20-16 this season.
Through the ups and the downs, the Heat remains in a spot it would like to avoid this season.
After needing to qualify for the playoffs through the NBA’s play-in tournament (features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference) in each of the last three seasons, the Heat again enters Monday in play-in tournament position as the Eastern Conference’s seventh-place team. But in a tight Eastern Conference, the Heat also enters Monday just 3.5 games behind the second-place New York Knicks.
“We’re definitely not there yet.,” Heat guard Norman Powell said when asked if the team is where it wants to be. “Definitely not. I think we’ve had stretches. You can see where we want to be, how we are, and the potential of the team. But good, great teams, it’s their identity every single night. And that’s what we’re building — every single night you know the team that you’re going to face and what you have to do to prepare to face that team. We’re a young team. We’re continuing to figure it out.”
The last two games are a microcosm of the Heat’s season so far, taking care of business against the inferior team but struggling to keep up with one of the NBA’s most talented teams.
After falling to a quality Minnesota Timberwolves team 125-115 on Saturday at home, the Heat bounced back to earn a 125-106 blowout win against the struggling New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night at Kaseya Center. The Heat is now 13-2 this season against teams that entered Monday with a losing record, but just 7-14 this season against teams that entered Monday with a winning record.
“I think we show flashes, so you can’t really dictate how close or not we are,” Heat captain Bam Adebayo said when asked how close the team is to where it wants to be. “But I think we just got to be more consistent. And understand that every game is not going to be the same. Understand, obviously, different personnel. And we just got to think the game more.”
Next up for the Heat is a challenging stretch that includes nine road games in a 12-game span. It begins with a four-game trip that starts Tuesday against the Timberwolves at Target Center (8 p.m., NBC and Peacock).
“We want to do some damage on this road trip and pick up these wins, and it’s going to be big for us,” Powell said following Sunday’s victory over the Pelicans. “So I thought it was a good starting point for us to go on the road feeling good about ourselves and how we need to play collectively on both sides of the ball. But yeah, this road trip is going to be really big for us to come out and get some wins.”
A few things that have been leading to wins for the Heat lately is its dominance on the boards and its disruptiveness on the defensive end.
During its last six games that it has posted a 5-1 record in, the Heat has recorded the NBA’s eighth-best offensive rebounding percentage (the percentage of available offensive rebounds a team grabs), third-best defensive rebounding percentage (the percentage of available defensive rebounds a team grabs) and sixth-best total rebounding percentage (the percentage of available rebounds a team grabs).
Prior to this six-game stretch, the Heat reached Christmas with the NBA’s 25th-ranked offensive rebounding percentage, 19th-ranked defensive rebounding percentage and 23rd-ranked total rebounding percentage through its first 30 games of the season.
“I think lately what really has become an identity is Bam, Kel’el [Ware], [Andrew Wiggins] putting pressure on the boards,” Heat guard Pelle Larsson said. “And if we can do that, we can push the pace and do that, people are going to get really tired of us. So we just got to be a pain in the [butt] for the other team.”
The Heat has also scored more than 20 points off its opponent’s turnovers in four of the five wins during this six-game stretch. Miami has posted the NBA’s highest opponent turnover rate (percentage of opponent possessions that end in a turnover) over the last six games at 18.5%.
That’s up from the first 30 games of the season, when the Heat recorded the league’s 12th-highest opponent turnover rate at 15%.
“That is and has to be our identity,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of forcing turnovers. “We have to play with the recklessness and activity level that exceeds our opponent. And that’s not to put down our talent level or anything like that. It’s more about how we look different when we’re flying around and making plays and making it tough for the opponent.”
The Heat has spent the first half of its schedule trying to find its winning formula. But as the second half of the regular season approaches and guard Tyler Herro prepares for his imminent return from a toe injury that has sidelined him for 13 of the last 14 games, coaches and players know they now have to put it together and find some game-to-game consistency
“Once we get later into the season and pass the All-Star break, we’ve got to have that identity locked in for the playoffs and positioning and seeding, especially in the East,” Powell said. “Everything is so close. So we’ve got to start putting together these wins.”
