The Miami Heat have been average over their last 25 games, but road woes and the injury bug is the primary culprit for their recent slump
In late-December, the Miami Heat looked like the second-best, or third-best at worst, team in the Eastern Conference. They were fresh off back-to-back victories over Eastern Conference foes – the Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers – and were sitting at 24-8 and in the second seed.
Bam Adebayo was emerging as a legit all-star and Jimmy Butler was getting consideration in the NBA’s MVP race. The team’s rookies – Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn – were the Heat’s newest draft gems and the team was playing way beyond even fan’s expectations.
However, since then the Heat has been quite mediocre. Since their 24-8 start to the year, the Heat is 12-13. They’ve been extremely bad on the road overall and have yet to stop the bleeding on their defensive slippage.
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During the team’s first 32 games, the Heat had a top 10 offense, defense, and net rating.
In their last 25 games, Miami has the 12th ranked offense (which isn’t terrible) but just the 17th best defense (9th amongst Eastern Conference teams). To put that defensive ranking in perspective during that span, both the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks have a better defense in the last 25 games.
Miami tried to improve the defense by trading Justise Winslow (who had missed most of the season due to injury) for Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder, and Solomon Hill. However, they haven’t yielded returns just yet.
The injuries haven’t helped either. The Heat has been fighting the bug for a few weeks now, with Kendrick Nunn (3 games), Jimmy Butler (10 games), Tyler Herro (11 games), and Meyers Leonard (8 games), Derrick Jones Jr. (14 games), and Goran Dragic (11 games) all missing time over the last couple of months.
As the Heat continue to struggle heading into a huge five-game homestand, the question looms over what can be attributed to their recent struggles. Are their road issues and injury woes to blame or are the Heat simply regressing to the mean?
What we know for certain is that the Heat have really been hurt by the injury bug. There’s no question about that. Additionally, during their 12-13 run, 15 of those games have come on the road. Where they’ve proven to be dreadful all season long.
Miami is 23-3 at home this season. There hasn’t been regression on that front – yet. However, with eight of their next 10 games at home, we’re going to get a clearer answer to whether the Heat are falling back to reality or if they’re simply an inexperienced team that is bad on the road.
Thus far, their recent mediocrity could be chalked up to injuries and road woes. Although, if the team continues to struggle in their next 10 games, perhaps it’s time to have a different type of conversation.
The Miami Heat are set up for success and a bit of a bounce-back over the next few weeks. If this team can get a bit more healthy and continue to play elite on their home floor, all will be well again for the Heat. This is no time to panic. Not yet, at least.