The Miami Heat came into the Golden State Warriors’Chase Center for the second leg of back-to-back games on the West Coast Wednesday and Thursday. Knocking off the undefeated Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night, the Miami Heat would have the opportunity to get another quality win on Thursday against the Warriors.
Though the game would be back and forth in nature up until near the very end, the Warriors would eventually pull away for good on the back of some heroics from their resident superstar, Steph Curry.
But this isn’t a night to hold your head down as a Heat supporter either though. You always want the victory, but this Heat team showed you some stuff.
There are no such things as moral victories for the Miami Heat, but as long as they learn something about themselves, then that’s an actual win.
The Miami Heat couldn’t get it done against the Warriors in San Francisco on Thursday night, but that’s fine. Though never ok to lose, there were positives.
What they learned on Thursday is that they do have what it takes to play as a cohesive and connected unit on both sides of the ball for elongated stretches at a time.
Being able to do that means that a team should, ultimately, be able to do that more than they aren’t, which, especially in the Miami Heat’s case, should translate to a lot of wins. They were only able to get back into and stay in this game with the Warriors due to some perfectly executed team play on both sides, play that saw them force turnovers and bad shots on defense.
Well, that team play and two other things. Or, should I say, two other people.
Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler also both had really good showings on Thursday. Adebayo would go for 26 points, eight rebounds, and an assist, while Jimmy Butler would go for 27 points, six rebounds, and eight assists while shooting 4-7 from downtown.
The Miami Heat played well enough to win and with just a few more timely stops or some more help from a few teammates on offense, they could have just as easily pulled this one out.
Again, you never want to see them defeated but this one doesn’t sting as much as it could because they fought hard, it was the second night of a back-to-back set, their stars gave good efforts, they did it the right way regardless of the result and lastly, I mean hey—it was the defending champions.