Run it Back! NBA Week in Review, Miami Heat - Week 24

[00:00:00] Week 24 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 Weekend Review heat edition. I'm Eric Labrador, contributor at the peach basket nut.net, covering the heat. This is the show where we recap the week that was in the NBA and then highlight the marquee matchup for the week to come for the heat. We start again 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 heap, they stay put in the overall rankings and 10th in the east because of their one and two weak. Tyler Harrell led the team in scoring at 29 points per game, but bam, at abi led in field goal attempts. COL wearer led the team in total rebounds. And tied with Jaime Haki Jr. For the lead in offensive [00:01:00] rebounds at two and a half per game, led in defensive rebounding, average, and tied for the lead in blocks. Davion Mitchell capped a great week, averaging 6.3 assists per game and 2.3 steels. So going into the review of the week, the heat went one and two, and were competitive in every game that they played. On Tuesday, they jumped all over the Celtics from the start and beat them by 20. The Celts made a run in the third quarter, but the heat kept pushing them back. Tyler had 25 and Bam had 21 in the game. Kyle Anderson had 19 and Pella Larson had his best game of the season, surprising everyone by scoring 16, most notably. He also took on Jason Tatum and a lot of defensive possessions and had success against him. The heat went to the line 27 times and made 24 After the game. The heat flew home and played Memphis at the Kaseya Center the next night. I [00:02:00] agree with Coach SRA that several weeks ago, the result of that next game on the second night of a back to back, the team would've been floored by the travel and would've lost the game by double digits. But the heaters competed and played Memphis tough. The heaters right now, unfortunately, are coming out on the losing end of these games because they don't have enough gas to finish. The heat went toe to toe with Memphis at the start of the second half, scoring 35 points with Memphis. Then they went into the fourth quarter with a one point lead. They gave up the lead and fell behind 100 to 95 with six 15 remaining. They fought again to tie the score at 1 0 3, but kept falling behind and having to burn energy to come back. Even heat. B Rider, I Windman noted the fight in the team compared to weeks previous. Finally, on Saturday, they played Milwaukee and again, they were competitive. They were up 88, 81 going into the fourth quarter. [00:03:00] The defense relented though, as Milwaukee closed the deficit quickly within the first three minutes to tie the score at 92. Then as a horse race would come down, the stretch, the heat, and the bucks traded baskets. The bucks tied the score at 1 0 9 with 1 0 4 remaining and just kept answering every, everything the heat would throw at them. Giannis did what he was supposed to do as the star of the team and got a triple double with 36 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists. He played great. No doubt about it. Giannis has had poor games against the heat before, not this one. The bucks shot as a team, 50 52% from the field for the game. Alec Burkes had 24 points. The dunk Duncan Robinson had a bounce back game with 16. And Davion Mitchell possibly solidified his point guard role for next season with a 20.5 assist game. Kyle Anderson had 12 points moving [00:04:00] to the Marques matchup. As I said, since the heat are 10 seated in the Eastern Conference, the entire week's games are Marques. There's not just one. They, he'd have three games this coming week, one at home and two away. They'll play at Philadelphia at home on Monday. They play Philadelphia at home and the Kaseya Center and need to beat them. No doubt about it, no fall off. Then the game against Chicago will probably determine who will host the nine versus 10 playoff game in the play in route Miami will go to Chicago. Miami has lost both games against Chicago this season. I don't care if Chicago would have the tiebreaker. Miami, if they beat Chicago, they gain momentum going into the playing game and they can overtake Chicago because they're within a half game of one another. So even though Chicago would be up two to one, Miami will gain momentum by [00:05:00] going to Chicago and beating them. Which is what I want them to do as a fan. The last game they played, Josh Giddy, had a triple double against Miami, and in the game against February Mattia, Boles went perfect from the field. It's not easy playing against Chicago, but the heat have every bit of chance to win that playing game and move on. Finally the heat go to New Orleans to play the usual rando game against the Pelicans. They usually play them at the start of the year and towards the start of the new year and towards the end of the season. The pelicans are 21 and 56 and their season is over. So based on how the Chicago game goes, it will be interesting to see how the heat responds to a game where they may not have a lot of motivation. No doubt about it though. Coach Spra and his coaching staff have done a great job after the Jimmy Butler trade in solidifying this [00:06:00] team and making them competitive. When Jimmy Butler was traded there was a lot of people that would probably look at the heat and have a chicken or the egg conversation, and. Who made them better? Was it Jimmy Butler that made the heat defense better or was it the heat defense in the team that made Jimmy Butler better? Spoelstra has earned his money this year as a coach and he's coached up the players getting Kyle Anderson and Andrew Wiggins and Davion Mitchell to buy into the team concept. And you can see now with their assists that are up. And the statistics that I read at the beginning everybody is contributing and that's how the heat are gonna win or lose however far they go in the playoffs. This leads me into full court press and a Google search on the heat and keywords related to the team. I found the following three interesting articles, former Heat Player, Tyler Johnson. Said in a [00:07:00] podcast this week that the heat organization closely monitored players nighttime activities. Johnson was quoted as saying that the heat even had private investigators that monitored the players. My take is, duh. It's been a myth that opposing teams would have problems coming to Miami because especially if they came, and stayed three days or two days before the game because they would get caught up and distracted by the South Beach nightlife and then wouldn't be ready to play the game. How else would the heat organization counter that without having their players in check against the visiting players? That wouldn't be anything. Everybody's human and as Johnson said during the podcast, you're gonna get distracted by things when you're playing. In Miami you would have to be just a gym rat like coach Spra is what he said to wanna be in the gym all the time to avoid those distractions. But outta five people, [00:08:00] you'll probably get one like that. Number two is just a take of mine. Not any specific art article, but. Tyler Heroes wardrobe choices after the post game. Somebody from the heat really needs to go over with him. His selections, he was wearing some sunglasses after one of the post games where he he looked like a wasp. The sunglasses were high up on his his eyes, and that was nuts. Or he's had the, the reflector sunglasses, indoors. And there was that time when he was injured during the playoffs, and he would wear those funky scullys with ears on them. It's Hey man, come on. You're getting to your sixth year in the league. Put those things away and finally. A favorite scan of this article a Bleacher Report article showing that Celtics fans were calling out Jason Tatum [00:09:00] for his poor performance against the heat on Tuesday. It just goes to show that Celtics versus heat is always gonna find its way again and be reborn. Tatum looks like he's suffered an injury that has limited him. The Celtics have, beaten the heat nine out of 11 games. I gotta give it to the Celtics. They're the best enemy for the heat to have, but it's always nice when the heat could jump all over them. And beat 'em by 20 in TD Garden, Boston Garden, whatever you wanna call it. It put a smile on my face. So that's it. Week 24 of the 20 24 25 NBA season is in the books. Join me next week after we run once again, run it back. Okay.