Miami Heat: Recent Skid Doesn’t Impact Title Contending Ability

There’s no running around it, as the Miami Heat have walked through an alley of trouble after suffering four straight losses to Philadelphia, Golden State, New York, and Brooklyn Saturday night.

To make matters worse, they are now number two in the Eastern Conference behind the Boston Celtics by way of tiebreakers—who they are set to face on this Wednesday in Boston.

A combined 33 total All-Star appearances were absent during the Heat’s last four losses, as that list included Joel Embiid, James Harden, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Julius Randle.

Despite holding the advantage on paper, Miami continued to be outperformed and even outclassed by teams who were without their first, second, or even third option, other than Brooklyn, of course.

To encapsulate it all, a lackluster defensive effort didn’t help the Heat’s chances. For a team that was starting to gain some positive media attention in recent weeks, Miami’s outlook of being in title contention has now become a fallacy to many.

The continuation of late-game meltdowns, a revolving door of injuries, and finding difficulty in properly integrating guys or certain lineups have vacuumed them into one of their worst four-game stretches in recent memory.

Now, before the rest of their schedule stands a team that is accused to be a shadow of themselves.

Miami Heat: Recent Skid Doesn’t Impact Title Contending Ability

To add to the frustrations that spewed over during Wednesday’s loss to Golden State, it may be difficult to imagine Miami being able to clean up their end-of-season messes with just seven regular-season games remaining.

For a team to fall apart during the final stretch of the season and possibly lose their top spot in the conference would make for a terrible headline, nonetheless, the Heat have unfortunately geared themselves in that direction.

Although, there are a few positives that remain. First, the Miami Heat are still NBA title contenders as of today and they’ve earned that respect dating back to their opening night performance against the defending champions.

Have injuries and late-season debuts hindered their chemistry a notch? Possibly.

But if we look towards some of the good things Miami was able to demonstrate, even in the loss to New York, is that they’re a team that’s still led and must be led by Jimmy Butler going forward.

Considering that the Heat played a Tom Thibodeau-led defense that ranks 10th in the league in Defensive Rating, Butler was still able to lead Miami with an efficient 30 points on 11-17 shooting, There is also this.

Throughout the first 36 minutes, he controlled the tempo of a Miami Heat offense that was without Gabe Vincent and Sixth Man of the Year frontrunner, Tyler Herro.

Butler was also as assertive as we’ve seen him since he’s worn a Miami Heat uniform and despite the end result, this was a tremendous response to the heavy criticism he’s recently received in regards to his leadership.

Miami Heat: They Have Work To Do, But You Expect Them To Conquer Demons

Although shooting just 4-11 from the field, Kyle Lowry is another player who has ramped up his aggressiveness to score since returning from an absence. He showed little hesitation to shoot perimeter jump shots and properly navigated the pick and roll with Bam Adebayo, who had a near-perfect night as he missed just one of his seven shot attempts.

On a few occasions, we’ve seen high scoring nights between Butler, Lowry, and Adebayo when they’re all on the floor together. The bulk of Miami’s early offense will be greatly dependent on them.

It’s simple. The offense will never be about forcing looks for Duncan Robinson or P.J. Tucker, who’ve, indeed, shown an essence to create for themselves or others but will always fall back on the core three aforementioned guys.

Now, you need Duncan hitting shots to provide that spacing, but the Miami Heat’s top three players are where their chances begin and end. With other top powerhouses that will be standing before them, this is just the requirement.

It’s unwise to completely write off the Heat from competing ahead of April though and for as frustrating as they have been recently, a handful of poor regular-season losses doesn’t change that. Rough patches occur throughout the duration of any NBA season and Erik Spoelstra has had to deal with his fairs share of it.

Hear this when it is said. This is one of the least challenging of them all.

He has the talent and personnel to create winning solutions and also understands the obstacles to get back on track.

"“Offensively,” Spoelstra told Ira Winderman of Sun Sentinel, “we just have to be better. I’ve got to figure out how I can help and get us in more of a flow, more of a rhythm, play with a little bit more pace to be able to put some more points on the board.  This is five out of seven games where we just haven’t scored the way we’re capable of. We will figure that out and get better at that.”"

The Heat will prepare for the final leg of their regular season schedule and it’ll behoove them to build stronger habits. That’s especially against upcoming opponents such as the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, and the Toronto Raptors, all of whom they could face at some point in the postseason.

For now, take a brief moment to inhale and exhale, as the Heat’s season and their hopes of hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy in June are still intact. If some team hopes to send home one of the toughest NBA rosters ever constructed in seven games or less, it’ll be an extremely difficult task to perform.

But until then, expect the Miami Heat to continue playing how they would probably prefer to play anyways—with their backs against the wall.