Run it Back! NBA Week in Review, Miami Heat - Week 20

Untitled project from SquadCast === eric-_2_03-09-2025_172116: [00:00:00] Week 20 of the 20 24 25 NB. A season is over, which means it's time to run it back. This is run it back NBA Week review heat edition. I'm Eric Labrador, contributor@thepeachbasket.net, covering the heat. This is the show where we recap the week that was in the NBA and then highlight the mar heat matchup for the week to come. For the heat, we start with the only objective NBA power rankings anywhere. You could read more about how we get to these rankings and see the entire list@thepeachbasket.net. As for the heat, they moved down to 19. Because of their one in four week and they dropped from seventh to eighth in the east. Dan Adebayo was a scoring leader this week. He was the everything. This week he averaged 10 field goal attempts per game and led the team in all rebounding categories in the Steels. Davion Mitchell averaged seven and a half assist per game. Cal aware led the team in [00:01:00] blocks and Andrew Wiggins and Duncan Robinson with three pointers made. This week, the heat we're busy with five games, four home and 1 0 8. The one win was Monday night against Washington. That game will not be discussed too much, if at all, because Washington is a team that Miami was supposed to beat and did. They're currently 13 and 49 on the season. Miami missed out on three chances to win and three wins. You could arguably say. They lost on Sunday night. The game against the Knicks went to overtime. The heap won the first half, the Knicks won the second half. They did their part by out rebounding Miami by 18, and Jalen Brunson did his part by being the number one option on the team by scoring most of his 31 points in the second half. Baaba did his part. By scoring 30 points on a very clean [00:02:00] and efficient 12 of 16 shooting the heat, still had a chance to win, and were up and were down one 10 to 1 0 9 when a jump ball was called. In the overtime period OG Enobi was doing the jump ball for the Knicks. And visibly you could see OG holding bams. Tip arm as they were getting ready to do the jump ball. Then as Bam was jumping up, OG was also holding his arm, forcing bam to tip with his off arm. The Knicks won the tip, and you could as I was watching the game, he'd analyzed John Karate, was wondering how the heat lost that tip. There it is. Now, I'm hoping that some fan of the basket could tell me if they've ever seen this before, and if they had two players one player holding the other player's arm on a jump ball if it had been called a foul or not by the referees.[00:03:00] I understand that in jump ball situations, they'll be jockeying for position, but Anna Nobis was above and beyond. It was just, bam, shook 'em off the first time. And then decided to go along. But it was it was egregious. SAT word, Tyler, hi. Got to the line in the game four times. That's not enough. He was around Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowery for four years five years, you could say. Surely he had to have picked up pro tips, but. The number one guy getting to the line four times against a good team, that's not enough. And going forward with the season that remains he hero has to be absorbing more contact. If you're gonna get injured, geez, do it in a, in, in an effort. I'll get to Tyler Hero shot selection more as we go along in the report. On Wednesday, the heat went to Cleveland. They were, Cleveland was favored by 12 and a half. The line was 2 21. And they lost by five. Duncan [00:04:00] Robinson buried a three pointer to tie the score one 10, but it was waved off because he had gone out of bounds before he took the shot. So that he played tough and they were shorthanded. A very critical part, and this is more than the heat's blown leads that they've had is their shot selection. They were down 1 0 8, 1 0 7 with 2 48 remaining, 2 48, 2 minutes and 48 seconds left in the game against Cleveland for the next four possessions that the heat had. This was their shot selection. Two 15 remaining. Mr. Porter. 1 45 remaining missed. Three pointer, 1 39 remaining missed. Three pointer 59 seconds remaining. Another missed three pointer. This team is not that elite and I would argue that any team doesn't matter how elite you are from three point range, the closer to the basket you are, the better your chances of making the [00:05:00] shot. But to waste that much time when you're down by one that's a problem. That's really bad. It doesn't matter about the blown leads. If you're still fighting with the other team to win, you gotta have better shot selection. That was just, terrible. Now for the rest of this, viewers and listeners. I will be speaking as if I was announcing a mystery, telling a tale, a Garth tale of a team cursed. A team cursed for particular reasons, and I will say it again. They played Minnesota on Friday and they lost the lead again. Yet again. They were up 1 0 2 to 99 with 2 39 remaining. The sharp sequence was poor. Allow me to read the sharp [00:06:00] sequence. 1 0 2 to 99 Had a bio missed a three point attempt at the 2 0 4. Mark Tallah hero missed a three point attempt at 1 27 and Duncan Robinson missed a three point attempt at 54 seconds. Could it be that this squad did not want to win secretly? I don't know, but the game was still in doubt at this point. And the offense's choice to take long shots without pressuring the defense decided the game. It just decided the game. It didn't matter if Adebayo was fouled or not, it turns out on second look. Julius Randall had his hand on ArubaOS hip. As Adebayo was shooting upwards, taking the shot upwards. To me that's a foul. That's a foul right then and there. He's not supposed to have his hands on him, [00:07:00] but Adebayo did kick his legs out and Randall did not gave him enough space to land after the three pointer. That's besides the point. Then we get to Friday night against Chicago. It was the biggest collapse. Because the heat were up 89 to 78 heading into the fourth. They gave up 36 points in the fourth quarter. The bull started the quarter on a 15 to five run, but again, it wasn't as much the blown lead. The heat held their position and they regained the lead with under four minutes. At 1 0 1 to 99, Chicago took the lead back at one 10 to 1 0 9, but with 40 seconds remaining. 40 seconds. Okay. Terry Sier takes a three pointer. Bad shot selection. Okay. When you're down 1 10, 1 0 9, a long shot, long rebound. You [00:08:00] don't make the defense. That's easy for the defense. When you take a long three pointer like that and the heat are just not that good at taking those three pointers late in games. It doesn't matter as much about the blown leads. It's about. When you're fighting back and forth with the opposing team, what do you do during that time and time to time again? That the heat have not responded. Something wrong with this team, you could call it a lack of will. Maybe what they say in the press conferences is not what's going on. Perhaps maybe it was the curse of the butler. The bud lets cuss hangs over this team like a dark cloud, a storm, which will never break. The marquee matchup, as I said last week, the heat and their fight to get out of the play in tournament, which probably they're headed towards the playing tournament all the weeks games of Mar Marquee, [00:09:00] the heat finished their five game home stand this week. They play the Hornets on Monday, the Clippers, Wednesday, the Celtics on Friday, and then travel to Memphis on a second night of a back to back on Saturday to play the grizzlies. Andrew Wiggins came back from injury to, to play last night against Chicago and played well, so the, he will have someone who can get fouls and head to the line more than four times during the game. The Hornets are 14th and the East. The heat need to win that game. It's not even a question That is, is something that you need to beat a team that bad. The Clippers in the Western Conference, they're like the heat in 6, 7, 8, 9 heading towards the playing tournament. The Celtics are the Celtics and the Grizzlies when they go to play them in Memphis, they're number four in the West. So the Grizzlies, it's not nothing. There's, they're gonna, they have a better record than the heat. It's anyone's guess though, how [00:10:00] the heat will do in these games, which leads me into the full court press in a Google search on the heat or other keywords related to the heat. I found the following three interesting articles, Anthony Paola, from the si dot com's heat fan page gives a take that the heat may pursue. Anthony Edwards in the off season instead of Kevin Durant. He doesn't give an actual avenue as to how they can get Edwards, but he does report that Edwards decided to practice at the heats facility during All Star Weekend. Could have chosen to go anywhere else, but he chose to practice at the heats facility. Anthony Edwards is 23, 24 years old a lot younger than Kevin Durant. And he has a very good relationship with Coach Spolstra. Number two hot hoops. Matt Hannafin talks about Tyler hi and the rest of the heat offense have struggled [00:11:00] in clutch situations and games. Now, I liked this take that he made in looking at his article. He says. That of the fourth quarters in fourth quarter, since the turn of the calendar, hero is shooting just 40.4% from the floor, and 25.4% from three point range of 88 players who have taken, at least this is reading directly from his article. 30 long range attempts in those situations since January 1st, heroes, three point percentage is seventh worst to compound the struggles moving on. He's shooting just 24% in five of 31 from beyond the arc in clutch situations. He owns the fifth worst effective field goal percentage, which is untenable for this team's primary creator outside of Bambi. Totally agree. Finally, number one. Anthony Chang over the [00:12:00] Miami Herald writes about bams fine of $50,000 for making inappropriate comments to the referees after the timber, after the non call in the Timberwolves game. Now, I said that I saw Julius Randall's hand on his hip as Adebayo was moving up. To me, that's a vow. But it was interesting that if you look at BA's body of work. He's only been Chang points out that he's only been called for one technical foul this season, so bam knows how to deal with the referees. And then he was like, look man, the referees were not giving him eye contact and explaining anything to him. And he was saying that he's heard other players say a lot of crazy stuff and they didn't get tossed out, in games or fine that much. So if you look at BA's body of work, he's been. Kind of one of the good ones. And for him to say that probably says a lot. And he's telling he's telling a lot of truth there. All right guys, so that [00:13:00] is the end of week 20 of the 20 24, 20 25 NBA season. Join me next week when we run it back and we'll see if the heat can get a better record in these next games this week. Have a good week.