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.
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.
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+
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+
Miami Heat Roundtable: Grading The Team’s Season – Noah’s Take
The Miami Heat pushed their season all the way to a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals, only to fall a few points short to the Boston Celtics. The loss was disappointing, not only because the Heat no longer have a chance to prove themselves in the NBA Finals, but also because the Heat still probably feel that they were the better team.
Noah’s Take (@ndeckerbuckets)
There will be no NBA championship this year in South Beach. With that being said, the Heat had an excellent season that exceeded what many had expected out of them. Miami finished as the number one seed in the Eastern Conference.
Who saw that coming with all of the stacked teams in the East? You have the Bucks, the Nets, the 76ers, and more.
And Miami came out on top of all of them.
The feat is even more impressive when you think of all of the injuries they had dealt with this season. There was rarely a time when the full team was healthy.
Like many other teams this season, the Heat had to go deep into their rotation to find players who could provide valuable minutes.
For the Heat, it seemed like each player stepped up and became an asset. For example, think of what Omer Yurtseven was able to accomplish when Bam Adebayo went out.
The credit goes to Coach Spoelstra and the rest of the Heat staff for finding talent and turning G-league and undrafted players into valuable role players. Also, think of what the Heat were able to accomplish in the postseason, particularly Jimmy Butler.
The man averaged 27 and led the playoffs in steals per game. He scored 40 points in every series he played in.
Despite injuries continuing to haunt Miami, they were able to force a Game 7 after a Game 6 win in Boston. It is tough to win in that arena.
Now that the positives are out of the way, let’s look at the glaring obvious negative to the season. The goal is to win a championship.
The Heat did not complete their mission. There were also a few times where their offense struggled, shooting 20 percent from three in some games.
That does not warrant an A in my book. The regular season was excellent.
The postseason was mostly excellent. Hopefully, the Heat come back next year and improve upon what they built this year.
For this season, the grade they earn is somewhere below an A. To take the lead of the greatest Miami Heat player of all time in his infamous appearance as a Slam Dunk Contest judge, this season was “a nine out of ten.”
Overall Grade: B+
Miami Heat Roundtable: Grading The Team’s Season- Kenneth’s Take
The Miami Heat had a pretty good season. You can’t call it “great” because, well, they came up short of the title.
Kenneth’s Take (@K_Said_Que)
The Miami Heat are always a team that will be in the mix though. It’s just what they do.
When you build teams through hard work and effort, you always have a shot, as it’s harder for you to have an off night than most other teams. A lot of other teams pride themselves on skills or fabulous offensive players, which can come and go, be off on any given night, or be countered by great defense.
When your best ability is the counter to most other teams’ go-to weapon, that puts you squarely in a place to contend every night. That’s how the Miami Heat got as far as they did this season.
That, not only, stands for the regular season, with all of the injury, roster inconsistency, and absence that they endured, but the postseason as well.
The Miami Heat had some, flat-out, putrid offensive showings in their Eastern Conference Finals series against Boston, however, they were able to overcome that with hard work and effort.
Now, they were only able to force a Game 7 before losing on the last-second Jimmy Butler attempt.
However, being able to do that after some of their offensive showings, with the disparity in officiating (just go look at the free-throw numbers), and having to come back from double-digits down in Game 7 with only a few minutes left to even give Butler the chance to miss the shot, it’s a testament to their composure as a team and franchise.
It’s also really impressive. It would have been even more impressive to see them win the whole thing, but it was not to me.
This season wasn’t all bad though. It saw the emergence of Tyler Herro as one of the potential future faces of this franchise.
It saw Gabe Vincent become the point guard that we all knew he could be if he worked hard. It saw Max Strus step into his new role and succeed, for the most part, and much more.
Now, it also saw guys like Duncan Robinson take a step back after receiving big money this past offseason, but you can’t win them all either.
With the way the year happened, every single thing in between, the top-seed acquisition, the playoff run, Jimmy’s heroics all throughout, and them getting right up to the cusp of an NBA Finals berth—you can only knock them so much.
Overall Grade: B+
Again, you always hope to win it all, but only one team can do that in any given year. This year was not the Miami Heat’s, but they still had a heck of a year.
There are no moral victories either, so this wasn’t a win. But it wasn’t a total defeat either.