Based on the moves they made this offseason, the Miami Heat clearly have championship aspirations. After a disappointing 2020 campaign, Pat Riley wants to head back to the Finals.
However, they don’t have the easiest pathway to get there. A ton of Eastern Conference teams made moves to get better this summer, and Miami has a tough challenge ahead of them.
The Brooklyn Nets are obviously a powerhouse, and a bunch of other teams also got significantly better this summer. However, the team the Miami Heat have their eyes on the most is likely the Milwaukee Bucks.
After losing in Round 1 to the Bucks last year, Miami might be out for revenge. Luckily for them, and fans everywhere, Pat Riley made sure to build a team that is better suited to compete with Milwaukee this season.
How did he manage to do this? In what ways are the Miami Heat better equipped to take down the Milwaukee Bucks this year?
Reasons why the Miami Heat are built to beat the Bucks: Better defense
Despite being one of the better teams in the NBA last year defensively, the Miami Heat still managed to improve in that regard. They added more pieces that will help them out on defense.
Kyle Lowry will be able to hold down the point guard spot on that end better than any of their point guard options last season. Pat Riley also signed PJ Tucker, who is known for his defensive prowess.
While the Heat’s offense was the main cause of their collapse last year, it still doesn’t hurt to improve defensively. This could allow some of their stars to focus more energy on offense.
Bam Adebayo should guard Giannis Antetokounmpo, but past that, the Heat have some freedom. Ideally, PJ Tucker could guard Khris Middleton so Butler can save some energy.
Miami added a bunch of talent this year, and their defense got a lot better. Milwaukee needs to be ready for an even better defense than the one they saw last year.
Reasons why the Miami Heat are built to beat the Bucks: Improved shooting
Last season, the Miami Heat got swept in the first round by Milwaukee. As mentioned, the main issue was not on the defensive end, but on offense.
Though they did manage to shoot slightly better than the Bucks from range, they still shot a horrendous 33.6% in the series. With their new additions, this shouldn’t be as much of an issue anymore.
Last season, Duncan Robinson was the only player to shoot at least 37% from deep on at least 10 attempts in the series. The rest of the team struggled mightily.
Notable players who shot poorly on a high volume of attempts include Tyler Herro (31.6%), Kendrick Nunn (27.8%), and Jimmy Butler (26.7%). This type of poor shooting is not going to help win a playoff series.
This checks out, as when the Heat beat the Bucks in the 2020 playoffs, they shot 37.3% from deep as a team. Having better shooters helps win basketball games.
This summer, Miami added Kyle Lowry and PJ Tucker, both of whom are solid three-point shooters. Lowry shot nearly 40% from range last season, while Tucker is known to be one of the best shooters from the corner in the NBA.
Having more shooting against Milwaukee’s stellar defense will certainly help. At the very least, it will give the Miami Heat more options on the offensive end.
Reasons why the Miami Heat are built to beat the Bucks: More options
This goes hand-in-hand with the point of having more shooting but takes it to a broader scale. The Miami Heat simply have more offensive weapons to work with this season.
When they got swept by the Bucks last year, they simply didn’t have enough options on offense. They had some great players, but when they went cold there was no backup.
Butler struggled all series long, as did Herro. After that, all they had were Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo, who finished first and second on the team in points per game.
As much as people rag on Butler for not showing up, sometimes players just have a bad series. With the additions, Pat Riley made this summer, that hopefully won’t matter as much.
Tucker and Omer Yurtseven are great, and they can score from the outside well. However, the most important addition on the offensive end is Kyle Lowry.
Lowry has averaged 15+ points per game in the last five playoffs he has played in. On top of that, he has also averaged at least five assists per game.
Having another player who can create his own shot and playmaker for others at Lowry’s level will be a gamechanger this season. The Bucks have the players to guard him, but it makes their life a whole lot harder.
Hopefully, the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks face off in the later rounds of the playoffs. That would be a very, very fun series to watch.