The Miami Heat are 21-20, hovering around mediocrity, hoping to surpass basketball purgatory to have a successful run in the second half of the regular season.
This time last year, the 2017-18 Miami Heat were 24-17, just winning their 6th game in a row against the Indiana Pacers.
You may be wondering why there is a dip in production this season by having 3 fewer wins, and the answer is pretty simple. The loss of All-Star Goran Dragic has oddly hurt and helped Miami, who are now able to give Justise Winslow more of a look at the point guard position, which has drastically helped the 22-year-old swiss army knife.
So while the Heat look like a worse team than last year, they are down a very important player, so if anything, they have been doing fairly well in the face of adversity. Unfortunately, the Heat can not seem to improve their middling record of 21-20, floating around .500 all season long.
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Head coach Erik Spoelstra, and his partner in crime Dwyane Wade, had this to say after a recent win against the Boston Celtics when the Heat hit the 20-20 record, via the Sun Sentinel:
"Spoelstra, “I’m not happy about where we are,” Spoelstra said. “We’re not happy about where we are. Yesterday was yesterday. It was a great competitive game on a Thursday night. [Saturday] night is the game I want to see a difference in our approach. “When we set out on the very first day of training camp, this is not where we wanted to be. [Saturday] is an opportunity to start to change that for the second half of the season. We have a lot of season left and a lot of opportunity ahead of us.” Wade, “No one wants to sit at .500. No one wants to be under .500, so we want to continue to keep playing better as a team,” Wade said. “I think we’re a better team than 20-20, but we’re 20-20. “If we were 25-15, we would want to be 30-10. The want for us to be better is never going to go away. We had a team that [went to the Finals] four years in a row, you didn’t see Spo smiling all the time, even then.”"
The Heat did end up beating the Memphis Grizzlies in their next game, ironically led by a defensive workhorse in the 4th quarter by Wade, but even that game wasn’t enough for these two.
Complacency seems to be the poison that kills sports teams in limbo around all leagues, Spo and Wade recognize that, and that is why they are some of the greats. The problem is, some of the other players may not always see it that way, which illustrates the problem this team is having with consistency.
Albeit, the Heat are still the 6th seed in the Eastern conference moving forward. There may not be a lot of room to move up, but if Miami can separate themselves from the 7th-10th seeded teams, they can solidify that 6th spot going into the postseason. But before we gloat on how well this Heat team can do in the second half of the regular season, we should take a detailed look at how all the players graded out during the first 41 games.
To start, we have a fan-favorite, high flying wing with no regard for human life.