The Miami Heat are a team that leaves you in a quandary. In order to best understand that, you must view it through the lens of the entire situation.
Headed into the postseason, we all collectively look at the teams assembled and then begin to separate them into various tiers based on the data gathered throughout the ebb and flow of the regular season. These teams are favorites, while there are also those that got hot at the right time.
This is the group that tends to surprise us. This is also that team that appears to be the obvious bust waiting to collapse in a series.
However, the most difficult teams to asses are the ones we file away under the label of a “switch-flipping” team. This is the team that seems to be in cruise control until the stakes are at the most valuable.
The Miami Heat might be one of those teams. The type of team to lose some weird games, but then go on an 11-game run, and have those big moments in National Television matchups.
In the recent past, successful teams tagged with this title have been the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers teams and the Golden State Warriors. On the other side of the spectrum, there are teams like last year’s Los Angeles Clippers, who was dubbed one of those types of teams, though they had yet to see playoff success.
Basically, it was an undeserved title. Are the Heat deserving though?
At 30-28 and sitting in seventh in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, the Miami Heat seem poised to fall into that same category just months removed from a Finals run. Or will they?