After coming literally a few points away from reaching the NBA Finals last season, hopes were high for the Miami Heat this season.
However, they’re 4-7 to start the season, and while it isn’t time to panic yet, the team does have some issues that need to be dealt with.
These two issues seem to stand out the most, and if not attended to, they could prevent the team from making noise in this season’s playoffs.
1. Frontcourt Size
The Heat are a very small team, as they have only two main rotation players who are taller than 6-foot-7 and only one over 6-foot-9.
It’s an odd problem, as they’ve always won by playing slowdown basketball, locking teams down defensively and making opponents deal with a slugfest.
Miami’s defense isn’t too stellar this year, as it ranks just 13th in defensive rating after placing fifth in that category last year.
A trade to get more functional size would seem to be what the team needs, but does it have enough trade capital to get one done?
2. Offensive Firepower
The knock on the Heat the last few years is that they’ve been an excellent defensive team that is great at winning ugly, but that it just doesn’t have enough juice to get over the hump.
They play at one of the slowest paces in the league, which just isn’t a recipe for tremendous success in this day and age.
Some good old fashioned milk the clock Miami heat offense. Ran it to perfection https://t.co/Lwy100qPyn
— Franky 🇨🇺🇩🇴 (@FrankyG_) November 2, 2022
It has led to Miami getting off to slow starts versus elite teams and having to expend lots of energy to simply make things close in crunch time, a weakness that was on display against the Boston Celtics in last season’s Eastern Conference Finals.
NEXT: Kyle Lowry Is Suffering From Some Inconsistency