By now, you’ve probably have heard that the Miami Heat have lost 10 straight games for the first time in 18 seasons, sitting at 29-41. Even the worst pessimists couldn’t have predicted this. Nevertheless, let’s dive into five pretty damning statistics that have played a part as to why they have lost 10 straight–among others.
-10.9 – According to Basketball Reference, the Heat’s NET Rating over the last 16 days is a minus-10.9, the team’s fourth-worst NET Rating over a 10-game span over the last 10 seasons. Four of their 10 losses were by at least 12 points, including two losses by at least 19 points against the Memphis Grizzlies and New York Knicks, respectively. Among the three 10-game samples that were worse was a 2-8 stretch last season from Jan. 17-Feb. 4, where Miami had a minus-11.1 NET Rating.
5 – One of the Heat’s biggest issues this season is closing games. They have lost 20 games leading by double-digits, the most in the NBA. Over their 10-game losing streak, five of those leads blown have occurred after owning double-digit advantages. They held 17-point leads against both Chicago and Charlotte; they held an 11-point lead against New York (losing by 19), a 12-point lead Wednesday against Detroit and a 13-point lead Friday night against Houston.
89.5 – The Miami Heat have been one of the NBA’s worst teams in clutch games, defined as games where the point differential is by five points or fewer with less than five minutes to go at least once. They’ve played seven clutch games over their five-game skid. Over that span, their offensive rating is a dastardly 89.5, the fifth-worst in the NBA … and their NET Rating is a gulp minus-46.1. Only the lowly Philadelphia 76ers have a worse clutch-time NET (-51.7). Yikes!
33.8 – The Heat has made it an emphasis to shoot more 3s this year, bettering the team’s spacing. It’s still a massive work in progress with Kel’el Ware and Bam Adebayo–two non-spacers–manning the middle, where defenses can play off him. They are No. 12 in the NBA 3-point attempts per 100 possessions with the 17th-highest 3-point percentage (35.8). Since March 5, they are shooting a league-worst 33.8 percent from beyond the arc. The only three players shooting above 38 percent from distance over that span (min. 20 3PA) is Davion Mitchell (43.5 percent), Duncan Robinson (40.6) and Bam Adebayo; Terry Rozier, Tyler Herro, Haywood Highsmith and Kel’el Ware are among those shooting below 32.0 percent from deep.
15.1 – You’re not going to win many games if you cough up the rock a ton. Miami owns the sixth-worst turnover percentage over its 10-game skid, coughing up the rock on 15.1 percent of its possessions. That’s not sustainable unless you’re doing the same to opponents. That’s also not happening, as the Heat are No. 15 in opposing turnover rate (14.0) with the eighth-fewest points-off-turnovers per 100 possessions.
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The calls for Pat to retire are picking up steam lately. A bunch of players and former players are being quite blunt about it, all saying similar things to what we have been saying on these threads. What used to be heresy is becoming the obvious.
u were the og of pat suks.u were right ,
The thing that’s most glaring to me isn’t any number, it’s that it’s clear even these lower level teams are better than Miami.
Miami owns a 35.5% winning percentage without Jimmy. I felt the needed to trade him. I felt they made the right move not extending him. But they still mismanaged the situation and ended up with mostly negative assets in my eyes.
Miami’s winning percentage sans Jim, is basically on par with the Raptors and Nets. They wouldn’t be chasing a play-in seeding, they’d be chasing a top 5 pick.
It’s a bad team that has been managed poorly, and barring extreme luck in the lottery will be similar next year.
Going to take a while to get back into it.
Funny, I couldn’t watch most of 4th qt. I knew what will happen. Does that makes me some kind of prophet?