Today's Talking Point: The Heat Have Wins Over the Champs and the Favorites
A week into the 2021-22 season, the Miami Heat already have wins over the defending-champion Milwaukee Bucks and the title-favorite Brooklyn Nets.
Good morning! The Heat went on the road and beat the Brooklyn Nets Wednesday night, 106-93. Miami (3-1) has notched wins over the two Eastern Conference favorites — the Milwaukee Bucks and the Nets — in the first week of the season and has not lost a game when Kyle Lowry played. Jay-Z didn’t seem too upset about it.
In a game in which the Heat led by double-digits in the first quarter and featured 12 lead changes, Bam Adebayo scored 10 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter to help the Heat pull away from the Nets despite the team’s poor shooting night from deep (8 for 29 from 3-point range).
But the Nets couldn’t get it going either, shooting just 38.8% overall and 32.6% from 3-point range against Miami’s top-rated defense. Brooklyn's 93 points are the fewest the team has ever scored with Kevin Durant (25 points, 11 rebounds) in the lineup.
The Heat got important contributions from Jimmy Butler (17 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, four steals and a block), P.J. Tucker (15 points on 3 for 5 shooting from 3-point range, seven rebounds) and Dewayne Dedmon (14 points and nine rebounds in 17 energetic minutes). Dedmon was giving off some serious “Birdman” vibes.
Miami out-rebounded Brooklyn 62-42 and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds that led to 31 second-chance points. "It's been a quality of the team that we noticed early on,” head coach Erik Spoelstra said of the Heat’s improved rebounding this season. “We hoped this would be a good rebounding team. It's something we focused on in the offseason."
Two big wins against the Eastern Conference favorites
With wins against the top two teams in the Eastern Conference in the first seven days of the season, the Heat are showing that they, perhaps, should be taken more seriously as threats to make the NBA Finals.
Sure, Miami’s opening-night win was against a Milwaukee Bucks team missing three key rotations players in Jrue Holiday, Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis; and the Brooklyn Nets are still reeling from Kyrie Irving’s unavailability due to his refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but the Heat also beat those teams by a combined 55 points.
The 3-1 Heat are now tied with the New York Knicks for third place in the Eastern Conference, behind the Chicago Bulls (4-0) and Charlotte Hornets (4-1), but have the top point differential in the NBA, outscoring opponents by an average of 15.3 points per game.
What’s more, the Heat have the NBA’s top-rated defense and the 16th-ranked offense. While the 92.0 defensive rating is buttressed by a legion of versatile defenders and improved rebounding, the offensive struggles can be traced to cold shooting from the outside, as the Heat have made just 30.6% of their 3s this season.
Most expected Miami’s defense to be elite and offense to hover around average, so that part appears to be sustainable. What stands out is that, in today’s score-first NBA, it can be a winning formula.
“It feels good to be able to win games, knowing that your not making shots,” Butler said. “I feel like we have a group that prides itself on getting stops. Everything is not gonna be good every single night, but when you do have dogs they’re always gonna find a way to win.”
Though this strong start doesn’t necessarily approximate to proof of concept, it is enough to buoy the team’s confidence heading into weekend matchups against the Hornets and Memphis Grizzlies. Wins against the Eastern Conference’s upper crust now may also prove valuable in the future when Miami jockeys for playoff position.
Going forward, the defense will improve as newcomers continue to gel, even if the unit has benefited from opponents shooting just 28.6% from 3-point range. The Heat have enough wiggle room on that end to account for a regression to the mean.
“I just like our competitiveness and how much we fought. This early in the season, that’s all you can ask for,” said Tucker, who spent most of Wednesday night guarding Durant, as was his assignment from Milwaukee in last year’s conference finals.
Offensively, shooters Duncan Robinson, Herro and Lowry will have to find their stroke from deep. Those three through four games are a combined 18 for 60 (30%) from 3-point range. But Butler’s steadiness, Adebayo’s new-found aggression and the additions of Lowry and Tucker raise the floor for this team from a season ago.
That’s what the Heat envisioned when they assembled this group in the offseason, and the immediate returns have been promising. The Nets and the Bucks may still be considered the favorites, but the Heat are the ones sitting on a couple of head-to-head wins.
“We got a team with a lot of guys that have won, have had that experience of getting a championship,” Adebayo said, “and know what it takes.”
Podcast: I joined David Ramil on today’s “Locked On Heat” to break down Miami’s win over the Nets. Check it out here, or wherever you get podcasts.
The Wes Side is a reader-supported newsletter and those who subscribe are taking an active role in my independent coverage of South Florida sports. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends and please consider becoming a subscriber.
As a reminder: All subscriptions, for now, are free and every article is delivered directly to your inbox. Eventually, I will make available a paid subscription option.