Early season struggles aren’t cause for panic
Coach Erik Spoelstra: ‘With a short turnaround, I anticipated there would be an adjustment. I hope there’s not a long adjustment with this.’ He’s continuing to work through different starting lineups and rotations.
The Miami Heat is in a unique position at the start of a unique season.
After falling two wins short of an NBA championship on Oct. 11, the Heat is already five games into the 2020-21 season less than three months later. The pandemic-shortened offseason is the shortest in NBA, MLB, NHL and NFL history, according to Elias
Sports.
The Heat has already felt the ripple effect from this unprecedented schedule during its up-and-down 2-3 start to the season.
“You got to think about it, man, we haven’t been together that long to get back in the flow with each other,” Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo said after Friday’s 93-83 road loss to the Dallas Mavericks. “So we just got to figure that out and do a better job of trying to get cohesive triggers and just play better together basketball.”
With 13 players returning from last season’s roster that advanced to the NBA Finals, what does Adebayo mean by that?
The Heat began team practices less than a month ago on Dec. 6 and played a short two-game preseason schedule that a few veteran
rotation players rested through in response to the abbreviated offseason. All-Star wing Jimmy Butler did not play in the preseason, and Avery Bradley, Goran Dragic, Andre Iguodala, Meyers Leonard, Kendrick Nunn and Kelly Olynyk played in one of the two preseason games.
In addition, Butler missed two of the first five regular-season games because of a sprained right ankle before returning for Friday’s loss to the Mavericks. Butler, who averaged an exhausting 43 minutes of playing time in the NBA Finals, is still working to find his usual rhythm after finishing with two points on 0-of-6 shooting, three rebounds and two assists in 27 minutes in his return.
“I think you’re seeing it throughout the league, even with teams that brought back the majority of their players,” Iguodala said, with the Heat now idle until Monday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder at AmericanAirlines Arena. “It’s trying to figure it out, trying to find it. ... The first month of the season, you’re trying to figure it out. Some guys try to rush through it. Some guys try to be too patient with it. I think we’re just working through it, trying to be smart about it. We’ve got a lot of depth, so a lot of moving parts, depending on the games.”
With Butler’s early injury and coach Erik Spoelstra still working to find the right combination, the
Heat used its fifth different starting lineup in the fifth game of the season Friday. It’s the first time in franchise history that the Heat has used five different starting lineups in the season’s first five games.
Besides designating a replacement in the starting lineup while Butler was out, Spoelstra has been rotating players in the starting frontcourt spot alongside Adebayo, where Jae Crowder excelled during last season’s playoff run before signing with the Phoenix Suns in free agency. Iguodala has started the past two games, but Moe Harkless and Meyers Leonard have also already started in that spot this season.
“We’re not going to figure this out in two days,” Adebayo said. “Coach is doing the best job he can to figure the lineup out, but also make sure our offense is flowing and is doing what it’s supposed to do. I feel like we’ll figure it out and we’ll get better together. We’re going to be alright.”
While the Heat’s defense has been statistically mediocre to begin this season, its biggest struggles have come at the other end of the court. Miami’s offense, which was a top-10 unit last season, entered Saturday with the league’s fifthworst offensive rating (scoring 101.8 points per 100 possessions) through the first five games.
The Heat scored 83 points on 37.2 percent shooting from the field and 7-of-33 shooting on threes in Friday’s loss in Dallas. It marked just the second game since the start of the 2017-18 season that the Heat has scored 83 points or fewer, with the other coming in a 106-82 loss to Atlanta on Jan. 6, 2019.
“No, not necessarily,” forward Duncan Robinson said when asked if opponents are defending the Heat’s offense differently this season. “I think last year we saw a lot of different coverages, different schemes. I don’t think we’ve seen anything out of the ordinary. I think that mostly it’s just us finding a rhythm and getting connected on that end.
“Rhythm is a funny thing in basketball. It’s important on both sides of the ball. That’s not an excuse and we’re certainly not looking for any excuses.”
Turnovers have especially hurt the Heat. Miami entered Saturday averaging a league-high 19.8 turnovers per game, with 52 of 99 coming on errant passes, according to NBA stats.
“Some of these are just rhythm and timing,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s early-season turnovers. “I don’t want to discount the fact that we do need to take care of the ball. Our locker room understands how important it is that we have to get shots on goal.
“But the way we execute and the way our offense flows and makes reads, it does take a little bit of time. We’re not just running a spread pick-and-roll with Jimmy every single time. There’s movement, there’s cuts, there’s back cuts, there’s reads and reactions that have to happen. With a short turnaround, I anticipated there would be an adjustment. I hope there’s not a long adjustment with this.”
While a 2-3 start to the season isn’t exactly what the Heat envisioned, it’s still early. Players and coaches know there’s work to be done to find the sustained success that carried the team to the Final.
“We just got to find something that sticks to us. That’s the bottom line,” Adebayo said. “That’s coach’s job. Our job is to go out there and try to execute. So with the power lineups and the lineups, that’s up to coach. We understand he’s trying to figure it out just like we are. It’s growing pains.”