Miami had a pretty disappointing regular season last year after having the best regular season record in the East in the previous year. They still had an elite defense as usual by being very disciplined and having a top 10 unit at creating turnovers, grabbing defensive rebounds and preventing FT chances for their opponents. However, they completely fell apart on offense. The Heat were a pure jump shooting team with a low volume % of shots in the paint, and a high 3pts volume% rate. Miami was the #4 worst team in the league in 3pts% and with them being so dependent on outside shooting on offense, their decline was quite evident and they were forced to play two play-in games in order to make the playoffs.
Suddenly, during the playoffs, Miami’s shooters came back to life and the Heat shockingly eliminated Milwaukee, the Knicks and Boston to get to the NBA finals where they eventually lost to Denver. The Heat that were one of the worst 3pts% teams in the league during the regular season ended up being the best 3pts% team in the playoffs with an quite incredible 38.0%.
2023/24 OUTLOOK:
Trading for Damian Lillard was Miami’s main objective during the offseason but they were unable to land the star Point Guard. Then, they also lost the fight to get Jrue Holiday, who ended up in Boston. The Heat lost their starting PG Gabe Vincent to the Lakers in the Summer and suddenly, they have a clear lack of depth at the PG position. In fact, 37 years old Kyle Lowry is currently their only pure PG on the roster and this is not good news for them. This will force coach Spoelstra to adapt Josh Richardson and Tyler Herro to this position, even though I must say that Miami is an expert at signing players out of nowhere and make them surprisingly very useful in the team’s rotation…
The Heat kept the same structure to the one that they used last season and so, we will be in the presence of an experienced team that should win a lot of close games. If we exclude the PG position, the team has good depth in every position and so, they should be competitive in the East. However, the difference of talent between them and Boston/Milwaukee seems to only get bigger and bigger…
