Coming off a terrible defeat on Tuesday night at the hands of the Detroit Pistons, a team with a bottom two or three record in the league depending on the night and who played, the Miami Heat have questions to answer. Even further than that, this was just a night after allowing a banged-up Memphis team to beat them on Monday.
Along with more than a few other Heat performances this season, those two games share more in common than just Heat defeats or losing to a team that they shouldn’t have. In both of those contests, the Miami Heat’s bench unit was severely outperformed by the other side.
In Memphis on Monday, the Miami Heat would only score 11 points off their bench to 24 of Memphis’s. The Heat would get five from Max Strus and six from Haywood Highsmith.
Now, that wasn’t the biggest issue there, allowing 64 points in the paint, but that didn’t help either.
The Miami Heat have a few things to address, but reserve production is one of them. With Victor Oladipo’s return, could he be that guy for them?
In Tuesday’s home clunker to the Pistons, the Miami Heat would only score 19 points off their bench, with the Pistons getting 54 from their reserves.
Of the Miami Heat’s 19 reserve points on the night, they would get five each, from Duncan Robinson and Nikola Jovic, while Victor Oladipo would score nine in his first game of the season. That’s where the intrigue is at the moment.
Of those nine points, Oladipo would score seven of them in the second half and all in the fourth period. For a minute there, it appeared as though he might be a huge part of the reason that the Miami Heat were able to close the game out over Detroit.
Now, of course, they weren’t able to but perhaps Oladipo’s showing is a large part of how they begin to fix the issues that led to a defeat like Tuesday’s. With Tyler Herro now playing as a starter, the Heat’s consistent bench production last year as a top-25 scorer in the league off the pine, they need a guy that can give them punch from that group.
Though he has a long way to go after not playing a ton during his Miami Heat tenure already and it being game 25 before he was able to suit up this season, there still may be something there. And with the Miami Heat searching for anything right now, Oladipo’s production off the bench may just be something of merit.