The Miami Heat got a huge victory in Game 5 against the Philadelphia 76ers in their second-round NBA Playoffs series. Coming away with the victory against a docile Joel Embiid and James Harden, it now sets the Miami Heat up in an elimination game on Thursday in Philadelphia to end things once and for all.
However, how did they even get to this point in the first place? Going up, 2-0, in the series to begin with, just how did they manage to put themselves in a position where they had a must-win Game 5 scenario?
Well, the answers can cover multiple vantages, but there is one that stands above all else. They were bad on offense.
That means—really bad. Not only did they shoot the three-ball terribly, an area that they were tops in throughout the season and have been for the last couple of years, but their overall offensive output was lacking.
That’s just it though. They weren’t great in Game 5, but just average.
Miami Heat: ‘Average’ Game 5 Shows Just How Bad Games 3 and 4 Were
That, then, brings us to the ultimate point. An average Game 5 showing, for these Miami Heat, shows you just how poor or extraordinarily bad they were in the previous two games.
In Game 3 and Game 4 of this series, the Miami Heat shot 14-65 from long-ranged territory. They shot 23 and 20 percent from deep, respectively, across the two games.
In Game 5 of the series, they shot nearly 40 percent at 13-33 or 39.4 percent to be specific, close to their season average of 37.9 percent per game. Now, in shooting that near 38 percent from deep per game, it would propel them to scoring about 110 points per contest on the season.
In Games 3 and 4 of this series, they scored below their season average, far below in Game 3 (79) and though just below in Game 4 (108), still below.
In looking even closer, that breaks down to about 27.5 or a raw 28 points scored per period on the season.
They only allowed 105 points per game during the year, which breaks down to about 26.25 points per period or 26 per period for a whole raw rounded number. In Game 5, they scored, at least, 25 points per period, with the first and the third periods being over 30 at 31 and 39 points.
In Games 3 and 4, they would, either, not hit their average scoring by a long mark (Game 3 saw them fail to reach 18 points in a period three times) or allow the opposition to go over the average amount of points they had allowed per period throughout the year (allowed Philly to score 28 or more in three of the four periods).
To be clear, this all could just come off as a bunch of numbers, which would be fair. That would be totally fair.
Miami Heat: An ‘Average’ Or Above Game 6 Should Be Enough To Get It Done
However and in accordance with the belief around these parts, numbers without context are meaningless. The context here is this.
In one, another, or multiple areas of their game, the Miami Heat were below average in their performance across their two defeats. In Game 5, they were just average or ever so slightly above average in most areas.
That leads to this thought. The Miami Heat have had to play a below-average brand of the ball compared to that in which they played all year long to lose to the Philadelphia 76ers twice in a row in this series, on the road nonetheless.
And while it doesn’t prove this point concretely, it’s safe to say that if they just show up and be average or above, they should stand a really good chance to close the door on the Philadelphia 76ers as soon as Thursday in Game 6.
Now, of course, we’d like extraordinary, as far as the team’s performance relative to their averages but as long as they can get a victory, everyone will take what they can get.