The Miami Heat are a dreadful 6-12. That is good enough for the 13th placed record in the Eastern Conference and a tie for the 27th best record in the entire league.
The Miami Heat haven’t been a good team overall this year, but especially over their last few contests. Out of their last 10 contest, two games against the Philadelphia 76ers, two games against Detroit, two games against Toronto, two games against Brooklyn, and single matchups against both the Clippers and the Nuggets, the Miami Heat have only been able to win two of those games.
Almost as tragic as the fact that they haven’t been able to win any of those games is the fact that Jimmy Butler hasn’t played in any of them. Tyler Herro hadn’t played in seven of them before coming back on Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Goran Dragic even missed both that contest and the one the previous night against Denver. These aren’t excuses, this is the Miami Heat’s reality.
The Miami Heat are 6-12 and though we want wins now, they’re only six games out.
Even with all of that though, the Miami Heat’s record, their string of absences from their most key players, their skid across those 10 games, and anything else you can think of to bring up, the fact still remains that they are only six games out of first place in the Eastern Conference.
The leaders of the conference, the Philadelphia 76ers, have a record of 13-6. The Miami Heat continue to play the Eastern Conference for the remainder of the season, so the chance to make up the games in the conference isn’t something to worry about as long as they can handle their business when given this opportunities.
Yes, I know, with only 72 games in this season, you don’t have much wiggle room as you would typically have in the standard 82 game season, but I mean, think about it. They still have 54 games left.
That’s a lot of games and a lot of basketball left to play. Hopefully, for the Miami Heat’s and our sakes, most of that is played with Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, and Goran Dragic on the floor.
The point of it all is this though. Yes, we all want wins now, I get it.
We have to be realistic though and understand what we have available. Although I will admit that this Miami Heat team is supposed to beat a Clippers team without Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, who could account for a near 20 point night from Nicolas Batum, who went nuclear from deep to do it.
Again, they should still win that game, but not having Jimmy and Goran in the lineup leads to things like this taking place. Still though, they’re still only six games out.
Hang in there.