A trio of blowout losses and one gutsy win, highlight a confusing week for the Miami Heat that lead to more questions than answers.
After a perfect week that included bounceback wins against the streaking Boston Celtics, the struggling Chicago Bulls and the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Miami Heat reverted to their old ways with a devastatingly inconsistent week, going 1-3 as they enter December.
While the one win was a solid, gutsy home effort against the Charlotte Hornets, the three losses were far more troubling. First, a decisive blowout to the Cleveland Cavaliers at the hands of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Then, a no-show in New York as the Knicks got whatever they wanted en route to a 29-point loss. Finally, the Heat returned home and completely fell apart in the second half against the mighty Golden State Warriors, a 28-point loss after trailing by two at the half.
Losses are completely understandable. While frustrating, they happen over the course of an 82-game season. But losses like these, where the Heat are essentially out of the game from the opening tip and can’t mount any sort of resistance, are indicative of a fatal roster flaw the team must address.
Too often in the New York and Cleveland losses, the Heat simply failed to show effort. Their offense sputtered (under 100 points in all three losses) and their defense was equally as uninspiring. They settled for lengthy jumpers, completely abandoned the concept of ball movement and offered zero resistance at the rim or on the perimeter.
It was a total collapse that leaves the Heat fan realistically wondering what the future is for this team. With December 15 approaching and the Heat’s record not able to find its way north of .500, one has to wonder if the clock is about to strike midnight on this version of the Miami Heat.
But enough about the negative, there were some positives for the Heat during this four-game stretch. Most notably the introduction of Bam Adebayo and the resurgence of Josh Richardson, who rounded into form after a dismal start to the year.
Make: Bam Adebayo
With Hassan Whiteside out of the lineup for the foreseeable future with a bone bruise in his knee, the starting center role was handed over to rookie Bam Adebayo, and the youngest member of the Miami Heat showed what made him a lottery pick in last year’s draft.
Adebayo’s activity was infectious and relentless from the very start, outworking some of the game’s best big men and impacting the Heat on both ends of the floor. While none of his stat lines will jump off the page, the proof is in the details of Adebayo’s growth as the Heat’s starting center.
That is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year and one of the league’s very best, Draymond Green, unable to box out the 19-year old rookie. Adebayo’s activity allowed him to keep the ball alive and then, in a rare moment of offensive poise (an area he will have to continue to improve) he’s able to put in the reverse layup. To have the presence of mind to get position, pursue the ball and finish, is something not found in a rookie starting one of his very first games. This is a great sign moving forward.
One of the hot button issues before Whiteside exited the lineup with injury was his screening ability, as the pick and roll is an essential part of the Heat’s offense. When the screen isn’t effective, the offense typically struggles which is what we saw early on in the year.
Adebayo appears to have that mindset thoroughly committed to memory, as he lays a hard screen on Green once again (this happened several times across all four games). Again, the patience and poise in a situation that could easily become an illegal screen, is incredibly impressive.
On the other side of the floor, Adebayo flashed defensive potential that at the moment feels unlimited.
Throughout Summer League, one of the apparent deficiencies in Adebayo’s game was raw footwork that occasionally took him out of the play, whether it be on offense or defense. And over the last four games, Adebayo twice found himself isolated on the perimeter against two of the very best players in the history of this game: LeBron James and Stephen Curry.
James and Curry tried, and both failed. Adebayo flashed some incredible poise (the theme of his week) to force a miss or a pass. Here’s his work on Curry.
Out of the countless big men that Curry has made look foolish out on the perimeter, he tried Adebayo every which way and the rookie had an answer every time. Even on the final pump fake, Adebayo kept his feet and forced a pass.
Adebayo’s play is so important, even if right now his metrics don’t reflect such contributions (big minutes in three blowout losses tend to remove context from advanced numbers). They will more accurately reflect his play as he continues to replace Whiteside in his absence. And moving forward, the Heat will need to take a look at whether or not Adebayo’s development makes the starting center
For that to be the case, Adebayo will have to continue to dominate his matchup like he did against Dwight Howard in the lone win against the Hornets. While Howard may be on the back end of his career, it’d have been understandable for the rookie to be bested by this matchup.
But instead, Adebayo dominated. Frustrating Howard into foul trouble and sending him to the bench early and often. It’s rarely wise to front Howard, as his length allows him to have position for any pass over the top, but Adebayo went with it anyway, knowing he could recover when the pass went over his head.
If you put all of this together and consider that Adebayo is through just the first quarter of his NBA career, the idea of him remaining in the Heat system and continuing to learn and develop is very promising. He possesses a relentless activity that has graduated past the raw, uncontrolled energy boosts we saw in Summer League. And this week, he proved that against some of the league’s very best players.
Make: Josh Richardson
After a number of weeks in the “miss” column, Josh Richardson finally welcomed himself to the season with an offensive game that resembled what we’ve come to expect from him.
Richardson was consistently playable because he was (and still is) one of the best defenders in the league and certainly the best on the Heat’s roster. That type of lockdown defense is imperative in late game situations, but his offense left a lot to be desired.
Finally however, the Heat’s defensive stopper found his shot, with a 27-point effort against the Hornets to lead the team to victory at home. Richardson connected on 11 of his 14 attempts, including 3 threes, and got into some of the offensive principles we spoke about previously.
Instead of forcing long, contested two-point jumpers, or 3’s from two steps behind the line, Richardson eased into the game, making simple plays within the scheme of the offense to get an open shot. Here, he simply tracks Tyler Johnson’s drive as his man (Nicolas Batum) gets lost watching the ball.
When you’re in a slump, the little things become extremely important. Something small such as moving within the flow of the offense and spotting up in-rhythm, can make a ton of difference. Here, it gets Richardson on the board early and fuels the rest of his game.
And once he gets directly involved in the game, Richardson can turn defense into offense with the very best of them, as he uses his defensive prowess to shoot the passing lane and take it the other way.
This is the type of Richardson you want to see every night and hopefully by season’s end, we can remember the first 20 games as just a minor hiccup in an overall successful season.
Miss: Inconsistency
Without diving too far into roster construction or any future moves the Heat need to make, the concept of inconsistency plagued them this week particularly in games against Cleveland and New York, where they weren’t remotely competitive.
There is no specific inconsistency. It was inconsistent offense, defense, effort and overall execution that led to lopsided results in both games. With the Heat, often it feels like an avalanche of negativity. When one thing goes wrong, twelve wrongs are soon to follow. For a team that should have the veteran presence to block out the bad, this is a troubling sign.
Starting on offense, the Heat are in a difficult situation where they just cannot put enough scoring on the floor at one time, and defenses know it. At this point in his career, Justise Winslow’s shot is not respected as a legitimate threat, and the same can be said about James Johnson, Tyler Johnson and Josh Richardson. And as we saw in New York, that leads to a difficult offensive night.
The only player who can successfully move defenses is Wayne Ellington, and here he is doing that without even touching the ball.
Kelly Olynyk, who has also emerged as one of the Heat’s more creative offensive players, knows David West has to jump out on Ellington to prevent an easy three, so he keeps and goes in for the dunk. If any other player were in Ellington’s place, West would’ve bypassed helping out instead allowing the dribble handoff.
In essence, the offense won’t get ignited unless there are legitimate outside threats to respect. The Heat operate within the framework of a drive and kick offense, and if the drive is difficult, the kick will be even more difficult. Here is a fairly routine look.
A couple of bad outside looks with inefficiency at the rim (just 16-of-31 against the Knicks), and the Heat’s offense will fail to reach 100 points almost every time.
Defensively, the Heat are so far from their identity as a tough, disruptive defensive team. They offer very little resistance, particularly around the rim, and have moments where they completely lack basic defensive principles. Like here, where they forget to stop the ball altogether.
Stopping the ball on a fast break is an elementary part of defending a break and yet the Heat allowed Ramon Sessions to dribble all the way to the low block without any sort of pressure. These lapses are far too common, and are points that the Heat cannot afford to easily surrender.
Again, here is another complete lack of focus from Dion Waiters, who has no business sagging off of Courtney Lee, a proven shooter in this league. Josh Richardson and Bam Adebayo have the pick and roll covered, but Waiters sinks to help unnecessarily and gives Lee a wide open, in-rhythm jumper.
These moments are unfortunately all too common, and are just two of the many defensive issues. The Heat currently rank 15th in defensive rating this year (and are 25th in net rating) and particularly this week, we saw a complete breakdown in their fundamentals and their focus. Which culminates in utterly indescribable plays like this, where Doug McDermott somehow outruns the entire Heat team for an easy basket.
The Heat’s lopsided losses this week were caused by both inept offense and disconnected, lackluster defense. Enes Kanter had a career half against the Heat (18 points and 13 rebounds), while players like Courtney Lee, Ramon Sessions and Kevin Love all got anything and everything they wanted. There isn’t enough effort on the defensive end and there certainly isn’t any resistance, something the Heat hang their hats on every day.
If there is going to be any hope for this season, it is going to have to start on the defensive end as it always has for the Heat. If they have to continually play games into the 100’s or 110’s, the losses will continue to pile up.
Next: Miami Heat: Team needs to follow Dion Waiters' example and shoot
Heat Nation is hoping for a better week, this time around.