While we’re only days removed from the start of the season, the Miami Heat are in the middle of arguably the toughest stretch of games they’ll endure all season.
It won’t get any easier over the next 10 games, but they’ve fared well against the Orlando Magic, Memphis Grizzlies and New York Knicks, respectively.
Through less than a week of action, the Heat — at 2-1 — are No. 12 in offense and No. 3 in defense, sporting the NBA’s ninth-best effective field goal percentage and eighth-best true-shooting percentage.
The beauty in their surge is that everyone’s played a hand in it — especially the Heat’s second-unit, which provided a huge spark in their 115-107 win against the Knicks Sunday.
“It’s a really gritty group,” Spoelstra said on his team’s bench after Sunday’s win. “It’s a competitive group. Where you think you may have advantages if you’re the other team, they make up for it with their activity and their toughness. They have a lot of belief and spirit about them that’s great.
“And then offensively — wow. They really play a collective game. The ball moves, they cut, they move great without the ball. They find open players. It’s really a fun group to watch. That’s two games in a row where they’ve really impacted the game.”
Heat bench has been one of best in NBA … so far:
It remains to be seen which early-season lineup and statistical trends will be sustainable.
But the Miami Heat bench has been arguably the NBA’s best — against three quality opponents nonetheless.
Entering Monday, their second unit — led by Jaime Jaquez Jr., Nikola Jovic and Simone Fontecchio — ranks No. 3 in offensive rating, No. 2 in effective field goal percentage and true-shooting percentage, No. 4 in steals per 100, No. 5 in rebounding percentage and atop the leaderboard in both NET Rating and assists per 100 possessions.
That’s good, eh? Moreover, in their two wins, the Heat’s second-unit has finished a combined plus-36 in bench scoring, running-and-gunning teams up-and-down the hardwood while generating deflections at a high rate.
As I detailed here, Jaquez has been a complete revelation with his downhill play finishing. Jovic is one of the team’s best passers in the open court, fueling some of the their best transition possession. Furthermore, after a rough preseason, Fontecchio’s canned 50.0 percent (8-16) of his 3-pointers.
Miami’s triumvirate — plus Dru Smith — has been mixed into different combinations with at least one of Norman Powell and Bam Adebayo.
Last year, the Heat’s bench was good-not-great. They’ve clearly benefitted from the new up-tempo offense. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they continue to gain trust as long as they sustain this pace, produce paint touches, keep the ball moving and, most importantly, putting the ball in the cylinder.
“We want to feed that group as much confidence as possible,” Spoelstra said. “I want them to be slightly-to-heavily unreasonable. It’s been a great boost for us.”
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I was at the game, and the atmosphere was electric, you could feel the heat chants going back and forth with Knicks chants, but we prevailed. Any chance i got I trolled the heck out every Knicks fan I seen without hesitation. It didn’t matter if they young or old. That bench unit has the potential to be really good. Juan wick is a baller, and the fast pace improves his game more as down hill slasher. Bounceback year for him after hitting the 2nd year wall. If he continues this stellar play, he will be competing for 6th man of the year. The Italian stallion is better then I expected, and credit to spo for maximizing him. I think we won the trade over Detroit. He’s the better, more all around player over dunc, and cheaper. Probably the best Italian player in the world, and I think we will see career highs for him.
I agree. With the better than expected performances thus far of Powell, Jaquez, Fontecchio, Mitchell and Smith, and the success of the fast paced offense, this team is playing far better than any of us could have predicted a month or two ago.
I hope they keep it up, so they can improve their talent, and show if they can be part of the core moving forward.
If the team keeps playing this fast paced, exciting winning brand of basketball (with a top NBA coach), I can see players clamoring to play in Miami. Things may get very interesting around here by the trade deadline. Herro and Rozier salaries alone total almost $60M. Throw in Wiggins and Heat has $80M + to play with. That should be enough for a ss and a third quality big.
I think we should enjoy watching the funniest team in years for now. Trades can wait.
“Live for today. Plan for tomorrow. Party tonight.”
You can party tonight. I’m an introvert. I’m watching movies on legitimate streaming platforms and not ones that I downloaded illegally through bittorrent because corporate greed has ruined the streaming ecosystem on my laptop while curled up in blankets tonight.
wow thasts lots cap space for a ss
bench was key to knicks win .play starters even and bench dominated.might be a good recipe for us to stack ws.as sun has stated quitter didnt want to run .only thing he wanted to run was to sf.new fast pace offense recipe for ws.keep this up could be looking at a top 4 seed
The faster pace is bringing out the best of several players. Heat’s second unit should be able to hold its own (or better) against most teams. The more the players become accustomed to running and gunning, the better the results will be. There is excitement in Mudville once again.
GO HEAT.
We are close. And with the possible compensation we may be getting, we can get closer. Mighty Casey hasn’t struck out yet.
Dru, Simone and Jaime have made far better than expected contributions to the collective effort. Nico was good in the second game too, but until he shines in a physical, gritty game against a team like the Knicks, he still is helping, but not on the level of the other three.
Going farther, Jaime has become a very valuable sixth man type, wearing many hats, having several skillsets that allow you to be comfortable inserting him into the line-up early or late. Have you seen Dru play defense?, he is nothing short of another Off Day, so we have two of them. And his bringing the ball up is so solid even under heavy duress. And Simone’s like a better HH, just as physical, but more skilled, with a decent three ball, but much more to his game. The Heat go eight deep with solid players now, something you couldn’t say last year.
I believe its 9 players rotation, with Pelle with some minutes here and there as 10th man.
That’s before the return of Herro and possible addition of a frontcourt rotation player.
With Herro, it will be 10 or 11. Ware, Bam, Wiggins, Powell, Davion, Herro, Jaquez, Simone, Jovic, and Dru equals 10, 11 if Pelle is included.
And let’s not forget about Kasparas. We’ll see how his rookie season plays out, he may stay in the training system and out of the rotation, but it’s certainly possible that he proves himself worthy of 10 minutes a night.
Miami is *super* deep right now, which is a crazy thing to say about a team whose 4th-highest paid player just got arrested.
I’m excited to monitor his development.
Must leave a spot open for the PF/C that Riley is supposed to be bringing in…people are sayin.