Heading into Christmas, the Miami Heat were playing a brand of basketball we wouldn’t have recommended anyone watch, even if they were on Santa’s naughty list. The uptempo, high-flying offense that defined Miami prior to Thanksgiving had been replaced by a sluggish and plodding system that culminated with just 91 points against Toronto last Tuesday.
Santa must have dropped off highlights from October and November into the stockings of Heat players because in the past four days, Miami has pulled a 180 and gone back to being the high-flying team we loved to start the season.
Miami blows out Denver for third win in a row
It kind of is amazing how Miami scored a season high 147 points against Denver, and the leading scorer for Miami had “just” 25 points (Norman Powell). But this is the version of Miami we saw that shot out to a 14-7 start before embarking on a December to remember for all the wrong reasons.
Niokla Jovic continued his strong play since returning from injury and had 22 points off the bench, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. was right behind him with 20. Kel’el Ware continued to look like a player who needs to be in the starting rotation permanently moving forward, and Bam Adebayo had ten rebounds in just 21 minutes of play. Even Andrew Wiggins continued his uptick in play and was a team-high +28 on the night.
Even after Miami had blown their initial early lead in the 1st half, 47 points in the third quarter helped the Heat pull away from Denver for good.
It begs the question: What was going on between Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Too much egg nog? Too many cookies?
Is it as simple as blaming Tyler Herro and wondering if this team is somehow better off without him?
That’s for Erik Spoelstra to figure out, and the caveat to this newfound three-game winning streak is that it has come against a flawed Atlanta team that might want to trade Trae Young, a dilapidated Indiana team, and a Denver team that did lose Nikola Jokic heading into halftime.
So is this fool’s gold, or is this a sign Miami has rediscovered itself?
The upcoming stretch that features a game at Detroit and two games against Minnesota will go a long way toward telling us.
But given that Miami could barely top 100 points no matter who they played in December, these last four days have been a welcome bonus Christmas gift for Heat fans.