All summer long, many of the Miami Heat's critics echoed that they may not have enough shooting and playmaking to emerge as a legitimate contender this season. On night one, those worst fears were realized from the opening jump.
Giannis Antetokounmpo's dominance and greatness were able to help offset some of that for the Heat in the first half, but Miami's struggles from 3-point range and playmaking eventually caught up with them in the second half of the team's 25-point loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the season opener.
There shouldn't be a huge overreaction yet, but the Heat certainly have much to improve as they head back to the drawing board ahead of game No. 2.
The Heat's offensive struggles begin with shooting and playmaking
The Heat went 8-for-33 (24%) from 3-point range, and their offense struggled many times in the half-court to create easy buckets. Davion Mitchell finished with 11 assists, but nearly every other player on the roster struggled to create organic offense in the half-court set.
If it wasn't Giannis driving to the basket, the Heat's offense was basically one drive-and-kick. No cuts. No other significant movement. That wouldn't have mattered had the Heat been hitting their 3-point shots, but that just wasn't the case.
And if a team is not hitting on 3s and there's no significant off-ball movement, well, that's a recipe for failure. That's exactly what happened on offense against the Wolves, especially in the second half.
Specifically, when it comes to playmaking, you'd imagine that it will be better the more comfortable Giannis gets with his teammates. After all, the Heat's offense is going to be much more reliant on him to emerge as a primary playmaker for the team. But that's not going to magically happen. It will start paying dividends once he and his teammates begin to trust each other more.
Giannis speaks on othe Heat's growing pains
That was one of the speaking points of Giannis after their loss.
"We have to trust what we doing. — I don’t know if it’s jitters or excitement from first game of the season but we gotta be better. Our offense gotta be better. We have to trust one another. Our trust can’t go out the window. When things don’t go our way we have to dig in”
That doesn't come as a huge surprise. It has to get better, though. As far as shooting is concerned, the Heat invested in and prioritized that during the offseason. And the results were inconclusive on night one.
Tim Hardaway Jr. finished with just three points on 1-for-7 shooting from the 3-point range. Klay Thompson was better and scored 10 points on 3-for-6 shooting from the 3-point range. But then Bam Adebayo and Andrew Wiggins, two players who are expected to factor into the Heat's outside shooting, weren't much better, going a combined 2-for-9 from distance.
Considering the Wolves hit 21 3-pointers on a near 50 percent clip, it's easy to see why the Heat were blown out in the opener.
In theory, though, history won't remember context. And at least on night one, the Heat's "biggest fears" on offense with Giannis were already a problem. It's not ideal, but it's certainly one thing to keep in mind as the Heat welcome the Detroit Pistons on Friday.
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