Miami Heat defense will continue to be tested across rest of road trip

The Miami Heat rank well in most defensive categories, but will they translate across this road trip?

While they certainly rank well in other defensive categories as well, you can’t point out the strengths without, at least, mentioning the weaknesses. As far as the key general team defensive stats, the only one that’s truly horrendous for them, ranking wise, is their points allowed off of turnovers.

The turnovers have been huge issues themselves, so while they do need to be better at holding on to the ball in order to stop allowing points off of said giveaways, that’s something they’ve been playing through all year. For what it’s worth there too, they’ve seemed to become a bit more consistently better in that area as the season has progressed as well.

The point of it all is this. They will certainly need to be on their best defensive behavior as they navigate the rest of this trip.

Facing off against the Suns on Tuesday, the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday, and then the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday, that’s a sleight of games that can see you struggle mightily. The Suns are also a top defensive team in the league, who just so also happen to be a top offensive team as well.

That sounds like fun, right? In order to get a win in Phoenix, the Miami Heat will have to make timely stops of their own and hit big shots, but mostly, keep Chris Paul and Devin Booker from torching them.

The Heat were beat by the Suns on March 23rd by 10 points as well, for that’s worth. Outside of a 33-23 second period in the Suns favor, which was enough and huge, the game was pretty even with the Miami Heat actually winning the final two periods.