How the Miami Heat can start to find success again
By Chase Eyrich
The Miami Heat left Phoenix with a win over the Suns, helping to clear up how Miami can find success through tempo.
When you control the tempo, you control the game. The Miami Heat don’t play into what the league has moved towards, which has hurt them.
Through the first 11 games of the season, there have been a lot of unanswered questions about this team. Even though Miami has had quite a few obstacles to overcome this early in the season.
Just before 2017-18 play began, Rodney McGruder had to have surgery to fix a stress fracture in his left leg, leaving him out for three to six months. Hassan Whiteside suffered from a bruised knee and missed five games. And Dion Waiters missed a couple of games for the birth of his daughter.
This has led to many changes in the lineup, and failure to find a rhythm across the board. It’s as if the Heat have been forced to find their identity, without ever being able to get settled with their personnel.
But if there was a time to go through all this, there’s no better time than the beginning of the season.
Before facing the Phoenix Suns, Miami had struggled with rhythm, team chemistry, shooting, and protecting the ball.
It’s not that a win over Phoenix is too impressive either. But what we saw was a step in the right direction. The players started to look more comfortable and relax. Even Waiters, in his first game back only a couple days after meeting his daughter for the first time.
Against Phoenix, it was the first time that Miami looked like they controlled the game. They stumbled a few times here and there, but always hit their stride with a run to regain a comfortable lead.
Coming off their worst shooting performance of the year versus the Golden State Warriors, Miami displayed their best shooting performance of the year with a clip of 53.1 percent.
The main struggle for this offense has been from beyond-the-arc. Coming into the Phoenix game, Miami was shooting 34.2 percent from downtown. This led to a league ranking of twentieth for 3-point percentage, accompanied with a 3-point attempt league ranking of sixth. Shooting some of the most shots in the league with one of the worst percentages is not a recipe for success. But, as Waiters would advise, keep shooting.
Which is exactly what the Heat did.
Goran Dragic has been the Heat’s dominant player this season, but hasn’t received much help. Hence the lack of chemistry, rhythm and cohesiveness.
Against Phoenix, Josh Richardson really seemed to be the only player to struggle. He scored only four points, while everyone else scored in double-digits. With Dragic getting this much help from the team, the court opened up tremendously. A reason why we saw such a spread of wealth. Miami was able to open up the offense to make shots come easier, and even more importantly, it gave them the ability to drive.
As one of the best drive-in and pass-out teams in the league, the Heat can cause a lot of damage with sharp-shooting. When that sharp-15shooting isn’t there, the continuation of the drive should at least draw a foul, if not points.
That’s the difference. When Miami can control the tempo and run their offense how they please, it results in raining triples or trips to the line. Phoenix was the first team that Miami got to the line more than, and racked up more points against. 28-for-35 (80 percent) at the charity stripe,, was the best the Heat have done in this early season.
If Miami is going to find success this season, it’s going to be by playing their game.
Head coach Erik Spoelstra has standards for his defense. They have held five opponents under 100 points so far this year, and they won’t buy into the run-and-shoot model that most teams are venturing to. At least not with two 7-footers on the roster.
As the team plays at their pace, turnovers disappear and game plans start to work like a well-oiled machine.
Next: Miami Heat: Dispatch from Waiters Island, weathering the storm
Through the struggles of lineup changes, Miami is starting to see where each player fits and how well they mesh. The kinks will work themselves out.