The Miami Heat were outlasted by the Orlando Magic in their season-opening game.
The Miami Heat should have wanted to get things off to a good start following the way last season ended. Wanting to avoid the rut that could come behind the roller coaster that is making the NBA Finals, yet seeing the opposing team hold up the trophy can be a bit much on the team that was defeated in the following season.
The physical aspect is one thing, but the emotional and mental aspects of it all have a huge impact as well. Hopefully, this iteration of the Miami Heat is as tough as their predecessors have been because opening night was a headache.
It wasn’t pretty at all. Here are my top three takeaways.
Bam Adebayo Mid-Range Game
The Bam Adebayo Mid Range game was alive and well on Wednesday night. It was one of the few bright spots for an otherwise sloppy Miami Heat team.
He hit three or four of them and may have not missed any at all, though even if he did, it was only one at the most. If he can continue to hit that shot with regularity, he is well on his way to becoming completely unstoppable on the floor.
The Miami Heat got beat on Wednesday, by themselves and Orlando.
Miami Heat Turnovers
The Miami Heat had some pretty bad turnover games last season, while they then had some really good ones. This is one of those things that fluctuated a ton for them last year but when it was bad, they and the results were also bad.
They had 22 of them on Wednesday night and you just can’t expect to win on a regular basis when you give the ball away that much. They should look to clean that up a bit before they face the Pelicans on Christmas Day.
Where Was KZ?
After the preseason showing the KZ Okpala had, we certainly expected to start seeing the legend begin to unfold on Wednesday. For some reason, that didn’t happen.
Not only didn’t he get a decent allotment of minutes on the floor but he didn’t see a stitch of time. That was certainly puzzling, to say the least.
We haven’t heard about an injury or anything and there were times where he could have helped. We shall see how things shake out from here though.
Listen, it was the first game of the season and you can’t win them all, right? We would all like to ultimately start out on the right track by winning the first one but it was a good close game, although sloppy at times and besides, the Orlando Magic are always tricky opponents for us.
We will get much better as the season continues along and that starts on Christmas against New Orleans, where I am still confident we will get what is now to be our first victory of the season. These were my takeaways from the first game of the year though, an unfortunate defeat.