Miami Heat Roundtable: Grading The Team’s Season
The Miami Heat were unable to accomplish their ultimate goal this season, the NBA title. Though they did get mighty close, “close” only counts in horseshoes and grenades, they say.
That still doesn’t mean that the Heat had a bad season, though for some, not winning a title is “bad”. Just where did they finish though in the minds of many?
That’s a great question. That’s also the mission here today.
Here, in the latest AUCH Roundtable, we will grade the Miami Heat’s year in our own different and unique ways.
Josan’s Take (@jdada7_)
“Championship or bust” was the mentality that Miami Heat guard, Kyle Lowry, brought over from Toronto. Lowry, after Game 7, said “But for me, it’s a waste of a year.
You’re not playing for a championship, you’re not winning the championship, it’s a wasted year.”
After being the Eastern Conference’s best team throughout the season and securing home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, the Miami Heat failed to win the most important game of the season.
light. Related Story. Culture Is Learning From Mistakes… Instance To Instance
There was more good than bad this season and that is why I will give the Heat a B+ grade for the season. Here’s why.
The Good
More Is Less – The Heat continue to find diamonds in the rough. This season, we saw great improvement from two undrafted players for the Heat in Max Strus and Gabe Vincent.
Each of them played 68 games for this season, provided valuable depth throughout the season, and all the way into the deep playoff run. After an injury-riddled season where superstars, Jimmy Butler (57 games) and Bam Adebayo (56 games) missed a good portion of the season, the Heat’s ability to capture the top seed speaks volumes about the culture and depth on the roster moving forward.
Experience – For a young team, getting to the Eastern Conference finals twice in three years is a good feat to accomplish. For players like Tyler Herro, Strus, Vincent, Victor Oladipo, Adebayo, and others, this provides valuable experience.
The type of experience they will need to finally break through, make the NBA Finals again, and win it all.
Read. More Decisive Aggression Is All That Can Propel Bam Adebayo. light
The Bad
Slow Starts – Time and time again, the Heat found themselves in deep holes in these Eastern Conference Finals. For instance, in Game 2, the Heat found themselves down 11 after the first quarter.
In Game 4, they were down 18 after the first quarter, while in Game 7, they saw themselves down 15 after the first quarter. The Heat scored 11 points in the first quarter of Game4 and that is unacceptable.
The Heat should be able to bounce back from these slow starts and learn from them, learning to be aggressive in the opening quarter to give themselves better chances at winning important games.
Bam Aggression – Speaking for a ton of Heat fans, when Bam looks to be aggressive to score, it not only opens things up for him but the entire dynamic of the team changes positively. When he plays passive, such as in Game 2 where he only had six field-goal attempts and six points, the Heat will, likely, struggle as a whole.
Adebayo put up 79 field goal attempts during these Eastern Conference Finals. Again, that is unacceptable.
The field goal percentage was superb at 59.5 percent but Adebayo averaged 9.7 shots throughout the entire postseason and only 11 for the ECF. For a versatile big who is great off the triple threat, can blow by slower bigs with his athletism and speed, and is too strong for smaller forwards or centers, Adebayo should be averaging 15-20 field goal attempts per game.
This is how I arrived at their grade.
Overall Grade: B+