The Miami Heat’s first round exit to the Philadelphia 76ers revealed a need to embrace and empower their promising young core.
As summer heats up, the NBA season is winding down with all 30 teams heading towards the offseason. But for the Miami Heat, they got an early taste of summer, bowing out in the first round with a five game exit handed to them by the Philadelphia 76ers.
The matchup was supposed to be one of the most compelling of the first round, but instead the Heat were abruptly introduced to their current reality. They are much further away from contention than they thought, and face a franchise-altering offseason to address the future of the team.
A five game series typically confirms a vast talent disparity between the two teams, as was the case between the Heat and the Sixers, a team many choose as the future of the Eastern Conference.
If it weren’t for an outlier game from Dwyane Wade in Philadelphia, this could have very well been a four game sweep. The Heat could not contend with Philadelphia’s talent in the second half, getting outscored by 78 in the third and fourth quarters through five games. The Sixers shot 50 percent in the second half of those games to Miami’s 42 percent, and thoroughly erased any goodwill the Heat may have built up in the first half.
The Sixers went on to lose to the Boston Celtics in five games, who in turn lost to the eventual Eastern Conference champions, the Cleveland Cavaliers. Assessing where the Heat stand following their shot at the Sixers is also impacted by the idea that they were as uncompetitive against the Celtics, as the Heat were against them.
The Sixers series revealed a fatal flaw in the Heat’s roster construction.
Hassan Whiteside was rendered useless by Joel Embiid and the more athletic bigs (Whiteside played just 77 total minutes), and the Heat lacked ample wing scoring particularly late in games, also struggling to cover the Sixers’ shooters. The Heat struggled to attack the Sixers, rather giving off the feeling they were simply holding them down before ultimately breaking.
For the Heat to move forward as a franchise, they have to address their reality that became evident in this Sixers series. The future of the Heat does not lie in the hands of career journeymen like Wayne Ellington and James Johnson, but rather their young core who proved to be their most versatile assets in these five games.
Justise Winslow delivered arguably the best basketball of his young career on both ends of the floor, meeting the challenge of defending Ben Simmons and the Sixers’ shooters, along with surging offensively. Josh Richardson too closed out a year in which he was one of the best defenders in the league, holding the Heat together before being limited with a shoulder injury in the fifth and deciding game.
Both Winslow and Richardson held their top defensive assignments on each night, which ranged from Simmons to shooters like Dario Saric, Marco Bellinelli and JJ Redick, to 36 percent shooting.
It became very clear that the Heat’s path to real contention lies with their core of young players, something that typically isn’t the case in Miami. Winslow, Richardson and Bam Adebayo, who steadily improved as the series progressed, will be the key to the Heat’s identity in a shifting Eastern Conference.
Change is coming in Miami. At least Las Vegas thinks so, as the Heat opened up at 20/1 to win the championship next year, good for sixth best in the entire league. (Of course, much of that relies on Miami potentially being a player in the LeBron James sweepstakes).
Even if James doesn’t decide to return to the place that produced two of his three championships, his movement will greatly impact a potential power shift in the league. If he goes to the Western Conference like many predict, his reign in the East ends, making way for new blood to claim the throne.
The Heat can enter themselves into that conversation by embracing their youth and adding wing scoring.
In his offseason comments, president Pat Riley alluded to such changes, citing a logjam in their backcourt that needed to be addressed. Financially, the Heat also inch closer towards the date where they will become a tax paying team, something that will not be accepted if the team isn’t directly competing for championships.
Next: Miami Heat: LeBron James has somehow gotten better
Get ready, Heat Nation. Moves are coming.