Outside of ‘bubble’ Heat has been below average for a year now
A look at how the Heat has gone from making the Finals in the bubble to starting 7-14 out of it. But Miami’s non-bubble problems trace back to early 2020.
It’s difficult to reconcile: How can a team talented enough to make a run to the NBA Finals — and finish 14-7 against top playoff competition in the Disney bubble — open with the exact opposite record, 7-14, a few months later, against a vastly easier schedule than what Miami faced in postseason?
“People are looking at the Miami Heat and they’re saying, ‘You all are flukes,’ like last year was just a one-hit wonder,” ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith shouted in recent days, and that was before the Heat lost home games to Charlotte and Washington.
Injuries and COVIDrelated absences to start the season have been a big factor, but this week’s losses — with Miami nearly at full strength — suggest there’s more in play here.
“We haven’t been playing good basketball,” Jimmy Butler said, adding he’s not shocked by the team’s 7-14 record that has left the Heat 13th in the 15-team Eastern Conference. “If you don’t play good basketball, you lose. That’s why we’re
7-14.”
To suggest the Heat’s NBA Finals run should be discredited — or dismissed as a fluke — because it occurred in unprecedented circumstances, inside a
sealed bubble amid a worldwide pandemic, would be unfairly harsh.
But in determining how much of the Heat’s success to attribute to the bubble, this cannot be overlooked: This was a mediocre team outside the bubble for 2 1⁄2
months before the 2019-20 season was paused, and is now the league’s fourthworst team (by record) in the first six weeks of this season.
Or put it this way: In games played outside the bubble since the start of the decade (Jan. 1, 2020), the Heat is 24-29. That’s a pretty big sample size of mediocrity outside a bubble, though it’s important to note that Butler missed 19 of those 53 games.
And for the first time late Wednesday night, a Heat player cited one unique bubble element as a key reason for the team’s success.
“We were all in the bubble together,” Bam Adebayo said. “We didn’t have our families. So we had to come together. I feel like that’s the reason why we were so successful. This season is a little different. We have to figure out another way we still can be closer as brothers and start being successful.”
Another difference, cited by Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro on Wednesday night, is that players aren’t “playing for each other” to the extent they did in the bubble, when they spent significantly more time together.
“If we knew the reason, we would all be playing for each other,” Herro said of a team that replaced only three players from last year’s Finals team. “We need to do everything with more detail, do everything with a lot more pace, do everything harder and start playing for one another like we did in the bubble. That’s the only thing that has really changed; we have to start playing for each other again.”
But a lot also has changed in terms of measurable gauges for a team’s performance.
Examining seven tangible areas in which the Heat performed better against good teams in the playoffs (Indiana, Milwaukee, Boston, Lakers) than against a mix of good, bad and mediocre teams to start this season:
Miami has gone from
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the NBA’s best clutch team in the 2020 postseason to the fifth-worst this season.
During its postseason run, the Heat outscored teams by 47 points in 50 minutes of “clutch” time — defined by the NBA as the final five minutes of games with a margin of five points or fewer.
This season, the Heat has been outscored by 17 points in 42 clutch minutes. Miami was 11-3 in playoff games with clutch minutes, 3-8 this season in games with clutch minutes.
During the playoffs, the Heat shot 52 percent overall in the clutch and 36.8 percent (14 for 38) on clutch threes. This season, Miami has shot 35.5 percent overall in the clutch and 22.9 percent (8 for 35) on clutch threes.
The Heat shot 35.9 percent on three-pointers in the playoffs, compared with 35 percent this season. Even that subtle difference has had an impact, because it has a corrosive effect on Miami’s overall play.
“A lot of times we miss a couple shots, we get down,” Adebayo said. “Last year, we missed a couple shots and we wouldn’t get down on each other. I feel like we’ve got to remain poised.”
What’s more, “we’re passing up open shots that we should shoot,” Adebayo added. “That’s getting us in trouble. When we’ve got an open shot, we’ve got to take it.”
In the playoffs, Miami averaged 112.7 points per 100 possessions, fourth best among 16 playoffs teams. This season, the Heat is averaging 105.7 points per 100 possessions, which puts Miami 26th in that offensive rating category.
“We’re just not making shots,” Butler said, adding the issues have nothing to do with the Heat’s schemes offensively. “When we’re not making shots, it kind of gives us an excuse to not play defense. If we’re making shots, we actually guard decently well. We’ve got to grow up in the sense of we’re relying on the offensive end. We’ve got to be who we say we are: a grind it out dog type team. We aren’t that right now.”
Robinson put it this way: “It’s easy to point at missed shots. It’s more about focusing on getting the right shots and getting stops so we can get out and go. We’ve had some offensive ruts this year, which is pretty uncharacteristic.”
Miami allowed the opposing team to shoot 34.7 percent on three-pointers in the playoffs, compared with 38.4 percent this season, which is seventh worst in the league. Too many of the threes have been open looks.
“We’ve got to be on the same page on defense,” Adebayo said. “We have mental lapses.”
The Heat’s starting power forward in postseason (Jae Crowder) averaged
12.0 points and 5.6 rebounds while shooting 34.2 percent on threes during his 21 playoff starts. Crowder left for Phoenix in November after the Heat declined to match the Suns’ threeyear, $30 million offer.
This season, the player who started at power forward (or the power rotation spot alongside Adebayo) has averaged 7.7 points and 4.7 rebounds and shot 33.3 percent on threes.
Crowder allowed the player he was guarding to shoot 46.3 percent in postseason. Kelly Olynyk, the Heat’s primary starting power forward, is permitting opponents to shoot 51.4 percent against him.
The Heat committed 13.1 turnovers per game in postseason, compared with 17.1 per game this season, tied with Chicago for worst in the league.
Robinson said the Heat’s offensive efficiency - including quality of shots and ball movement - is not “at that level” of last summer’s playoffs. “Particularly at the end of last year, you saw connectivity on offense and moving the ball and enjoying other peoples’ success and having fun. That’s one of the biggest differences we’ve all felt. Having fun came with winning. They go hand in hand. We have got to start playing for each other more. That’s not to say one person is sticking the ball. It’s everybody. We have got to continue as a group to work for the best shot.”
The Heat was outrebounded by a total of 29 boards in 21 playoffs games. This season, that margin is minus 63.
There would be no upside to missing the playoffs, with Miami’s 2021 first-round draft pick belonging to Oklahoma City under any circumstances.
But with the NBA allowing teams in the seventh through 10th spots in each conference to compete for the seventh and eighth
playoff seeds through playin games, there’s now a greater opportunity for teams to salvage their seasons after poor starts.
After Wednesday’s stinging 103-100 loss to Washington, there was disappointment but also dogged determination:
Adebayo: “The message is we’ve got to keep fighting, we’ve got to figure this out.”
Robinson: “At this point, we’re just looking for solutions. We have to band together. That’s the message right now. We have to figure this out as a group.”
Herro: “There have been a lot of moving parts, but there can’t be any excuses or we will just keep losing.”
Any concern the team might splinter?
“Not with the guys we have in this locker room, not with coach Spo being our coach,” Herro said. “I don’t think that would be the case. We just need to focus on what we need to focus on. Every day, try to play for one another, try to uplift one another.”
ALL-STAR VOTING
Butler stands fifth and Adebayo sixth among Eastern Conference forwards in the first round of NBA AllStar fan voting, behind Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum. The NBA plans to hold an AllStar game on March 7 in Atlanta, according to The Athletic.
INJURY UPDATE
The Heat listed Avery Bradley as out for Friday’s game against Washington because of a calf strain sustained in Wednesday’s game. Bradley could miss a month, The Athletic reported. Goran Dragic (knee) is probable. Maurice Harkless and Chris Silva remain out.