Miami Heat Weekly Round-Up: 01-07 Nov
Have you ever missed a game or two? Maybe you were too busy to keep with everything that was going on with the Miami Heat? Being a fan of the NBA from the UK, I find myself in that situation regularly and I just wish there was some summary of what has happened, some stats, and some key highlights of each game. Well, this Miami Heat Weekly Round-up is exactly what you need.
In each round-up, you will get all the games from that week all linked to their individual game breakdown, a weekly discussion, and other interesting tidbits from the week.
Weekly Discussion:
Two impressive wins and one game that didn't matter.
Anyone that overreacted to the Celtics lost by thinking that the Heat aren't that good or that this was a flukey start just needs to be quiet.
Games like that will happen — there will be games where you can't make a shot and that is what happened. It's an 82 game season, there will be games where either a team can't score or they can't miss.
Even with that loss, this was a great week for the Heat.
Per Cleaning the Glass, the Heat are still fourth on offense and defense and have the second-best net rating.
A win against two top-3 teams in the Western conference is impressive. A team should beat worse teams, that's why it's a good sign when the team beats other solid teams — Heat have beat four teams that are currently above .500.
Last week the main topic was their league-best defense, but this is not the case in these two wins.
It feels weird how in those two wins, it was the offense that won the game — the Heat's offensive rating was 135.2 against Dallas and 129.7 against Utah. It feels weird because that is not the Heat I have been watching the past two seasons.
Last season, the Heat had only six games with higher offensive ratings than 128.
And a big reason why the offense is much better is because of these two.
Lowry is Back
Kyle Lowry had a rough start to the season, averaging 6.8 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 7.0 assists on 34.8% true shooting — he couldn't score at all.
Yet, now it seems like he flipped the switch. In the next four games, he's averaging 15.8 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 8.0 assists on 78.4% true shooting — including a game where he had a 101.1% true shooting against the Mavericks.
I've talked about how over his career, he has been one of the best pull-up jumpers from deep.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1455986536994967553
And over the last four games, that Lowry is back. In those games, he is 9-16 on pull-up 3s.
Early 6MOTY Favorite
At what point do we decide whether a player's hot start to the season is, in fact, just a hot start?
What's more interesting to see than simply the raw stats is how much confidence the team and his teammates have in him.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1457435820420390920
How many players are technically their fourth-best player, yet are the number one scoring option and has that kind of offensive load and is doing it on solid efficiency.
I think that is the most impressive takeaway from this. You got Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, and Lowry and you're letting a third-year player after coming off a rough sophomore year be your primary scorer?
Fun fact, Herro leads the team in points and field goal attempts in the fourth.
Other Interesting Tidbits:
We are going to have to start a conversation about Butler
Everyone always talks about how he doesn't have to score a lot or have great box score stats to be effective. That's all true — he does have a significant impact even when he doesn't put up those stats, but he is also putting up those stats now.
I never view Butler as a scorer, yet he's averaging 26.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 2.5 steals on 61.7% true shooting. Not a lot of players can say they are averaging those numbers and are one of the best wing defenders in the game.
This season alone, Butler has been a top-10 player, but is he on that level in general? With everyone healthy, is he that guy?
Still waiting on Duncan Robinson to get out of his slump — it's surprising to see he didn't play at all in the fourth
Would love to see more plays with Butler and Herro — those empty side PnR or a dribble hand-off with Butler
The Heat are still top-3 in OReb% and opponent OReb% — last year the Heat had eight games with a 30% or higher OReb%. This year they already have five games