Miami Heat Roundtable: Grading The Team’s Season – Will’s Take
The Miami Heat wrapped up their season with an unfortunate Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. It hurts to know that this season is over, especially with the season they had and knowing how close they really were to another NBA Finals appearance.
Will’s Take (@crackseason)
Unlike some Heat fans out there, you won’t see every player, coach, or water boy in the trade machine. Instead and here, we’ll be looking over the season and putting an official grade on it.
Starting off with the player improvement, you have to give it an A+. Guys like Max Strus and Gabe Vincent would play in spurts last season and even then, it felt like too many minutes for them.
The jump they made this season has been incredible to watch. From bench warmers to stepping up and starting in the playoffs, it was fun to watch.
Tyler Herro, obviously, took a huge leap that was recognized with the NBA Sixth Man Of The Year award. Regardless of what happens with him this Summer, one thing is for certain, and that is that he’s going to continue to get better.
As far as the regular season, as a whole, that gets a B+. Coming into the season, the thought was that they would be a three to four seed.
The thought that they’d capture the top seed wasn’t there, but they did. If you look at the seeding, you’d think to give it an A+, but a lot of regular-season issues popped up in the playoffs.
Jimmy Butler definitely turned it up in the playoffs and killed the “go-to-guy” questions, but when the offense slowed down and that defense was locked in on Jimmy, the offense looked very rough. In some of the games against Boston, that ultimately led to huge deficits that they couldn’t recover from.
For the playoffs grade, you give it an even B. This may just be the critic showing face, but you really did expect an NBA Finals appearance.
You thought they had the easiest path to get there and the NBA is as open as it’s ever been. Yes, they were quite literally a shot away from getting there, but you have to be of the firm belief that they shouldn’t have even ever been in that position of having to fight back.
The depth, three-point shooting, and interior defense killed them this series which is ironically everything we praised them for in the regular season. It was a fun playoff run and while the ending is disappointing, they went out fighting, which is everything you want from a Miami Heat team.
They’ll win a championship with Jimmy Butler, as he’s endured and overcome too much not to. It just won’t be this year sadly.
Hopefully, with the right moves and being in better health, next year will be an A+. Here is the grade that came with this season though.
Overall Grade: B+