Miami Heat: Proving that defense no longer wins championships

As Head Coach Erik Spoelstra often reminds us, mostly in post game and practice session pressers, tomorrow is a new day to get better and that yesterday is behind us. However, there are moments that you must look back, and this is one of them.

The Miami Heat took another deflating “L” on Friday night at the hands of the red-hot Oklahoma City Thunder, not to mention their next saddening loss last night to the Victor Oladipo-less Indiana Pacers.

However, throughout this post, we’ll stick with the review of the Heat’s performance against the Thunder, as it was atrocious.

With the OKC game, the Thunder grabbed their 7th straight win, receiving key contributions from their pseudo “Big 3.” Paul George finished the evening with 43 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists, while Russell Westbrook threw in his usual triple-double with 14 points, 12 rebounds, and 14 assists. Even outside of PG13’s outburst and Russ’s 5th straight triple-double, Dennis Schroder threw in 28 points on an almost perfect night from the field, going 11-13 himself.

Looking a bit deeper into the box score, PG13 went 10 of 16 from deep. An outstanding feat in itself, what makes it more impressive is that he had the same amount of makes from 3 as the entire Miami Heat team from the arc.

Still not entertained? Perhaps knowing that he did it on 20 fewer attempts will get you there, or possibly even depressed if you’re a Heat fan. That begs the question of which is worse, the fact that the Heat allowed him to make 10 of 16 attempts, or the fact that the Heat only made 10 of 36 from the 3-point line.

Choose your poison here, as they both are a recipe to lose.

This, along with many other things about this Heat team, including the infamous, putrid starts to games, points to a lack of offensive prowess. One would want to believe that with a few tweaks, it can be fixed, or is this simply all the firepower this team has to offer? And while this game saw Miami score 102 points, they hadn’t cracked the century mark in their previous five games, which needless to say, is beyond horrible in 2019’s NBA.

Looking at the other side of the ball, this Miami team still plays the defense they’re well-known for, ranking 3rd in ppg allowed and 6th in defensive rating. That used to be enough, however, past teams haven’t quite been this offensively challenged.

In case many of you didn’t know, and sadly to report, defense just doesn’t win championships anymore. In that same light, and it cannot be stressed enough, we are dealing with an entirely different league. This is now a league where you must be able to score. You must also be able to space the floor, a dastardly, over-used, but absolutely, correct popular phrase. In order to do that, you must have shooters, and according to analytics, the best shot is the 3-point shot.

This is bad news currently for the Miami Heat because these guys just haven’t been getting it done, especially when guys like Wayne Ellington are sulking on the bench.

One thing is for certain here though, if Miami hopes to hold on to any of their playoff dreams in the second half of the season, they must take the All-Star break to tweak the offense, maybe getting back 2018 All-Star Goran Dragic will help. It shouldn’t be that hard, none of these guys will be in Charlotte to play, which is all the better because they need to get up a lot of shots.

Hopefully, they’ll make some buckets at the practice facility.