Miami Heat: How important is homecourt advantage?
The 2016 NBA Playoffs may be just around the corner, but the Miami Heat still need to focus on their last two regular season games in order to clinch homecourt advantage.
While there may only be two games left on the Miami Heat’s regular season schedule, the team is not looking ahead to the postseason just yet.
The Heat, who are taking on the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday night and the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night, are trying their hardest to secure homecourt advantage for this year’s playoffs. Miami has only won 19 games on the road this year.
"“We’re a different team at home,” Justise Winslow told the Sun Sentinel. “That’s for sure. Just look at the stats: shooting percentage, defense and offense.”"
And this is especially true as of late.
The Heat have only won one of out their last five road games.
Of course, there are other factors to consider when keeping in mind such a statistic. For one, they were dealing with numerous back-to-backs, a great example of this being Miami’s April 8 loss to the Orlando Magic. Dwyane Wade was also out on April 2 against the Trail Blazers, when the Heat came up short.
Nevertheless, there is no denying that playing at home has a different feel to it. And that AmericanAirlines Arena brings out the best in this roster.
"“It’s big, just having the fans at your first one or two games, just having them out there for your support,” Hassan Whiteside explained. “We’re obviously a better home team.”"
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Unfortunately, grabbing the two remaining road wins is not all Miami has to worry about. Both the Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks are also gunning for that homecourt advantage.
As of Monday night, the 47-33 Heat sit fifth in the East, tied with Boston and only one game behind Atlanta. In other words, not only does Miami have to win, but the Celtics and the Hawks have to lose as well.
Boston, who went up against the Charlotte Hornets tonight and lost 114-100, still have to square up against the Heat at the TD Garden. As for Atlanta, while they lost 109-94 this evening versus the Cleveland Cavaliers, they will still play the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night as well.
So far this season, although the team has come out swinging, Miami has had to deal with a lot of surprises.
From having Winslow fall into their laps, to Bosh’s health concern, to Joe Johnson suddenly becoming available and more, it seems like the Heat have not have much of a chance to plan ahead this year. And the same can be said for their situation now. While they can control how they themselves close out the regular season, they also have to rely on how their competition does, in their chase for homecourt.
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The good news though is that so far, the unexpected seems to be agreeing with the Heat.