You and I knew that the Miami Heat after LeBron was going to be an adjustment. With all the new players (only seven players remaining from last season) and new coaches (bye bye Ron Rothstein and Bob McAdoo) the Heat were facing more changes than a Davie Bowie song.
But I didn’t think they would be winless through four preseason games.
It’s not as if the starters are playing poorly. Even the backups aren’t getting washed away. Two of Miami’s games went to overtime, so those games really could have gone either way. And in the two games they lost in regulation, the Heat gave up big quarters to the opponent. Against New Orleans in the preseason opener, it was a 28-17 second quarter. Against the Hawks, Miami had a 31-16 first quarter but got beat 43-18 in the third.
Those two quarters happened, in large part, without Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade on the court. Bosh and Wade are used to comebacks. In fact, that was pretty much the Heat’s modus operandi for the last couple of seasons. “Hang in there until the fourth and then we will take over.”
The Heat showed that in every fourth quarter sans (okay, enough latin) the first one, outscoring their opponents 89-64 in the final period.
A lot of that has to do with Shabazz Napier and James Ennis. Ennis is averaging 14.5 points per game and Napier 9.3 But the Heat played both Bosh and Wade in the final minutes against the Hawks’ second and third unit guys, which was borderline pathetic.
Watching these games, nothing leaps out at you. No glaring problems. Nothing that just screams OH GOD RAYMOND FELTON IS YOUR POINT GUARD.
The issue is similar to what the St. Louis Rams faced on Monday night football in a loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Rams quarterback Austin Davis didn’t play a particularly great game, but the Rams were up 14-0 at one point. St. Louis capitalized on some field position and big plays in the first quarter before letting San Fran back in it and eventually losing. Why? Because young Austin Davis didn’t have the fundamentals, nor did he make the right decisions, to keep his team in the game.
It was the same sort of thing for the Heat against the Hawks Tuesday. Miami jumped out to a 31-16 lead after one quarter because, well, they just weren’t missing shots. But the ball movement wasn’t particularly crisp and they weren’t getting great looks. Any team can get hot and win a quarter–some can get hot for an entire game–but not consistently getting good looks and open-enough shots will catch up with a them.
Bosh mentioned ball movement as a problem after the game. From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Ira Winderman.
"“A loss is a loss,” Bosh said. “I don’t take many positives out of that one. Yeah, there is a concern. We need to win a game.“After a while, the ball just stopped moving. We kind of got very monotonous with the offense.”"
The Heat are without Josh McRoberts, who is still recovering from off-season toe surgery and was brought in to help with the ball movement. He will certainly do that. But he won’t fix the whole damn thing.
Napier has been able to create shots in a way that Cole and Chalmers haven’t. Cole did make a few very impressive passes against Atlanta that should have counted as assists if the player didn’t miss his shot. Napier’s playmaking is natural, but he’s still too raw. If he shows consistency shooting the ball and on defense, though, don’t be surprised if he gets some starts this season if Miami’s ball movement doesn’t improve.
The Heat will be better during the regular season when its roster is cut to 15 and Bosh, Wade and Deng are playing four quarters, but the ball movement has been an issue even with the starting unit. That takes practice. When Derrick Rose went down for the Bulls, they had to learn to create shots with ball movement. That resulted in a lot of games where they scored in the 70’s and 80’s, but it got better.
Now, with Rose back, they make plays like this:
The Heat will get there in life after LeBron. It will just take some time. Remember, there are two–and could be three–new insertions into the starting lineup and an all-new cast of role players. Maybe they have to make some moves at the deadline to acquire another shooter, but this roster is still a playoff one. We just have to be patient.