The Miami Heat Pull A Miami Heat In Defeat To Hawks
The Miami Heat had a golden opportunity before them on Friday night. Heading into Atlanta to not only face a Hawks team that could immediately help their playoff seeding chances in defeat, but they were to also be facing a Hawks team that would be without their top two players, by most standards.
With Trae Young and Clint Capela out due to injury, the Miami Heat should have taken the chance to roll through Atlanta and smack the remaining Hawks down with, relative, ease. They didn’t though.
That’s such a Miami Heat thing to do though this season. Infamously, these Miami Heat play down to the competition.
The Miami Heat wasted a golden opportunity in Atlanta on Friday night and they have to be better.
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While you could point to any team in any given year and say the same, for this iteration of the Heat and even in all Jimmy Butler‘s glory, it’s a bit more noticeable. They could look like one of the better teams in the game against a good team on one night but then, against a team they should beat, they come out and look uninterested.
To seven Hawks guys averaging a grand total of 79.4 points per game this season in the league, the Miami Heat gave up 108 points to them, alone, in this game. To be clear, that wasn’t even the entirety of the scoring done by the Hawks against the Heat on Friday.
The Miami Heat had a chance to climb into a situation where they shared the same record as the Hawks and the Celtics with a win and if tonight’s results with the Celtics had gone the same way. If the Celtics had lost, as they did in actuality and the Heat had handed Atlanta a defeat, they would all sit with 32 wins and 28 losses.
Unfortunately for Miami, that is not the case and they must continue to depend on other teams to help them potentially avoid a play-in situation. They are a better team than they showed on Friday and it isn’t an excuse that they play down, it’s the shameful truth.
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They face the Chicago Bulls on Saturday, so it’s no time to sulk. They need to be sure they go into this one with the right mindset though, as every game is crucial from here out.