Run it Back! NBA Week in Review, Miami Heat - Week 23

[00:00:00] Week 23 of the 20 24, 25 NBA season is over, which means it's time to run it back. This is run it back NBA week in review, heat edition. I'm Eric Labrador, contributor@thepeachbasket.net, covering the heat. This is the show where we recapped the week that was in the NBA. And then highlight the marquee matchup for the week to come. For the heat, we start with the only objective overall NBA power rankings anywhere. You can read more about how we get to these rankings and see the entire list@thepeachbasket.net. As for the heat, they move up to 22nd in the rankings with their three and oh week, but they're still 10th in the east. Tyler Hiro led the team in scoring and field goal attempts. Kal Ware led the team in all rebounding categories. Davion Mitchell averaged seven assists per game during the three, and [00:01:00] Andrew Wiggins led in blocks and steels to review the week. The heat had a great week going three and oh. They beat the warriors, the Hawks, and the Sixers. On Tuesday, the heat got a spark from beating the Warriors and broke their 10 game losing streak. The heat were ready to get back and shot lights out in the game. Unfortunately they only got to the line, foul line 12 times in the game. Bam. Autobio scored 27 points on 18 shots and set the tone from the start bullying the Warrior's front court eight, shot 68% from three, which was great. But the question arose was that when the heat shooting would be off against a competitive team, could they slow the game down by getting to the line? They hit our 25th in the NBA in field goal attempts per game and our 27th in free throw attempts per game. There's no need for other teams to feel any need to increase the defensive pressure [00:02:00] on the heat. The game on Tuesday was the anticipated reunion game with Jimmy Butler. Since the trade, Jimmy Butler was obviously affected by the game. He acted like a moody teenager all week in interviews. Referring to his time with Miami, like a broken relationship with a significant other. Now, I love doing impressions, so every time I listened to Jimmy and all the articles or all the interviews on tv, it would be like, I might watch the video. It makes no difference to me. If they make a video, we all right. We had some cool runs, whatever. Power Riley better not say anything to me. He reminded me of the 1995 movie Friday where Ice Cube's girlfriend tried to confront him cheating over the phone and said, you don't have to lie, Craig. So Jimmy Butler doesn't have to lie. He was affected [00:03:00] by coming back to Miami. It was weird. It was awkward. He like sheepishly raised his finger. When announced by Michael bte in the usual way, that he would be announced to a mixed reaction from the crowd. He scored 11 points on 12 shots and wasn't a factor. Goodbye, Jimmy. On Wednesday, the heat had their best win of the second half of the season, and beating Atlanta's the eighth seed in the East and won two out of the last three games against Miami. Miami couldn't find a more even matchup to prove that they can compete. Tyler Hiro scored 36 points on 17 shots, which was ultra efficient. The heat had their moment of truth in the early fourth when the score was one 14 to 1 0 9. The heat held the lead and pushed it to 10. The team went 20 to the line 20 times in the game, which was a marked improvement. Tyler Hiro also improved from Tuesday by going seven times to the line [00:04:00] against Atlanta. Where on against the Warriors. He only went twice. In looking at the total amount for the heat, their average amount of foul shots per game is 20. Andrew Ligon Wiggins leads the team with 4.3 attempts per game, but is only 32nd in the NBA here. Ran, not Abi, aren't that far away with 4.1 attempts per game against the Sixers. The heat took care of business. The key point in the game was in the early third quarter when the heat were only up to 72 to 69. Haywood Highsmith scored five straight points. Then Alec Burkes hit two straight three pointers. Babi had a sweet cutting layup on a pick and roll with Davian Mitchell. And then Pella Larson had an N one layup on a great pump fake, and that put the game out of reach. The marquee matchup, as I said last week, since the heat of our 10th seed in the Eastern Conference, all the weeks games are marquee. The heat have four games this [00:05:00] week, two at home, and two eight. They play The Wizards on Monday in dc. Then they go to Boston on Wednesday, and then they come back home playing Memphis on a Thursday and finally Milwaukee on a Saturday. So that flight from Boston after the game to Miami and playing Memphis the next day is gonna be a tough test. The heat, if they're ready to get ready for the playoffs, need to begin to solidify their identity this season, whatever it is. So they need to play the way they're capable of playing. So they have to beat Washington on Monday. They can beat Washington. The heat can make a run in the last games of the season. But the key games to truly know will be this week if they can scratch out a win or two. I would want it to be two, especially against Memphis and Milwaukee, but wouldn't be upset if they went the whole three and oh and beat Boston and Boston. It's gonna be [00:06:00] this week as the rest of the teams that they play in the remainder of the season have below 500 records. The heat this season have become infected by the dolphins in that whenever they play tough elite teams, they don't compete and they lose badly. And the players, their best players have bad games that are not effective. This leads me to the full court press in a Google search on the heat or keywords related to the heat, I found the following three interesting articles. Writer Wes Goldberg on all You Can Heat website gives takes on the heat. He said that Tyler Hiro took a page out of Steph Curry's off ball game. Davion Mitchell contributed with his positional defense and Kyle Anderson is a U Utility point guard for Coach Bolster. My ticket is that in watching the Atlanta Game, hero only scored one basket playing off the ball and the rest of the time he had [00:07:00] the ball in his hands. I do agree with Goldberg that he did take a page out of Steph Curry's book, but Tyler Hero should exponentially. Learn to play off the ball. He should become a worshiper at the church of the Steph Curry off ball church. He would become, he would increase in his foul shot attempt, increase in his scoring. He's not a guy that should be bringing the ball up court for the heat at all. He should be on the other side, putting pressure on the defense, allowing. Davion Mitchell, whatever other point guard is for the heat to be able to look for him on cuts and off of screens. Number two was that LeBron James finally confirmed the cookie story on the Pat McAfee Show. The legendary cookie story that Dwayne Wade a couple of weeks ago talked about where Pat Riley took the cookies away from him. LeBron said that it wasn't that he grabbed the cookies out [00:08:00] of LeBron's hand on the trip. LeBron said that they were gonna go on a road trip. He asked for cookies and they said, no, no more cookies on flights. LeBron said that wasn't the main reason why he left. He did though use the story to vouch for the fact that Pat Riley is all about the team and the franchise, and he doesn't cater or pander to any individual players. And finally. Coach Spolstra in talking with our windman, commented about the sudden firing of the Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins, and said that it was unfortunate Jenkins was the winningest coach in the Memphis franchise. What is Memphis doing? They're second tier in the west always. And now all of a sudden they have the winningest coach in the franchise and let 'em go. The GM really didn't give a good impression. To fire the coach. So in this emotional morass that they find themselves in [00:09:00] that he can probably take advantage of any fallback by the Memphis team because of this blunt decision. So that's it. Week 23 of the 20 24, 25 NBA season is in the books. Join me next week after week 24 when we run it back.