Prior to Christmas, the Miami Heat looked lifeless and looked like a team that had zero answers to fix their sinking ship. Emblematic of the Heat’s desperate state was the -27 Andrew Wiggins had against the Raptors, which was the 2nd time in six games he was -27 on the court.
Through three quarters against Indiana, the Heat struggled to put away a squad that has just six wins on the season. But in part because Wiggins had one of his best games of the season, the Heat finally pulled away for a 142-116 win that was far closer than the final score would indicate.
Andrew Wiggins scores 28 points in win over Indiana
Wiggins has been a tough player to try to evaluate at times this season. He is actually having a career year in three-point shooting, and his 39.8% rate from three would be just the third time in his career he has been north of 39%. His overall field goal percentage is also the highest of his career, and he is on pace for the 2nd most blocks of his career.
But he is also not getting to the free-throw line, and he is on pace for the 2nd fewest free throws he has ever attempted in a season. The end result is that his 16.4 points per game are the 2nd fewest of his career.
But what has really made Wiggins hard to evaluate is that he will have a night as he did on Tuesday, when he was -27, and then follow it up with his 2nd highest point total of the year on Saturday with 28 points, when he was also +13 on the court, his 5th best +/- of the year.
Wiggins embodies the Heat's up-and-down nature as a whole. Yes, it helps that they played a dilapidated Pacers team who have been wrecked by injuries in their own right, but it still doesn’t fully explain Nikola Jovic returning this weekend and looking like a whole new player. Jaime Jaquez Jr. has started to reestablish himself after a slump and now has 20+ points in three of his last four games.
And Indiana or not, this was a Miami team that just scored 91 points against Toronto on Tuesday.
The difficulty will ramp back up this week with games against Denver, Detroit, and Minnesota. If Miami is going to navigate this stretch and continue to try to keep its head above water, it will need the version of Wiggins they got on Saturday night.