Coming off three consecutive seasons with a bottom-10 offense, the Miami Heat have been shredding opponents like Grady A cheese through the first week of action.
Despite missing Tyler Herro — who has yet to appear in a game this season after undergoing foot surgery earlier this summer — and Norman Powell (groin), the Heat demolished the Charlotte Hornets Tuesday with a dominant 144-117 win. Seven players, led by Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s 28 points off the bench, had double-figure scoring.
Miami’s high-octane offense did not take its foot off the pedal for 48 minutes and, frankly, hasn’t for the first four games of the season. Erik Spoelstra’s new-look offense has been a wrecking ball due to its blend of spacing, ball movement, shooting and downhill play finishing.
There’s still plenty of basketball left to be played, but the Heat’s four-game start is off to a record-setting start offensively. Let’s talk about it!
Heat have scored 144 points twice for the first time in franchise history:
Heading into the 2025-26 season, the Heat had just eight instances of scoring 140-plus points in team history. The last came on April 11, 2025, against the New Orleans Pelicans, when it scored a franchise-record 153 points.
There was only one instance of them recording at least 140 points twice in a single season (2023-24), when they scored 142 points twice against the Indiana Pacers and Portland Trail Blazers.
However, it only took them four games to score at least 144 points — a mark it’s only reached three times ever before 2025-26 — not once, just twice.
Four games. That’s it.
Better yet, only one team — the 1990-91 Denver Nuggets — since the merger has scored at least 140 points twice in its first four games.
Somehow, the Nuggets lost both of those games. Don’t ask me, I don’t have any answers.
But the fact that this current Heat team has crossed that threshold without arguably their best offensive player is quite impressive, and a testament to the team’s execution early on in the season.
The Miami Heat’s 526 total points (131.5 ppg) is the most in franchise history through four games … by a lot:
Given what I just shared, this shouldn’t come as a great surprise. Here’s how other Heat teams fared through their first four games.
- 2025-26: 526 points
- 2019-20: 472
- 2012-13: 441
- 2018-19, 1990-91: 436
- 2020-21: 434
The 54-point gap between this year’s Heat and the 2019-20 team is a greater gap than from the 19-20 team to the 15th-place team (2023-24 — 418 points).
Once again, there is still a lot of basketball yet to be played.
However, given some of the concerns about the team’s structure heading into the season, and how they’ve performed through four games — especially against two solid defenses in the Magic (who’ve underperformed) and Knicks — is incomprehensible.
And beautiful.
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Glad we got rid of that crybaby butler cuz we wouldn’t be experiencing this fast paced and space explosion, if he was still here. Let’s keep stacking wins, ik it’s early, but I think we can be at least top 6 in the east, with a ceiling of top 5 for now. if the trajectory continues trending upward like this..
I think the … to top 4 and home court is Herro fits in nicely, Kaspar gives us another pace/creating option, and like every team, health luck.
Yes I agree with that also, all things considered.
From watching the other teams. I want to see Miami’s matchup againt the Sixers and the Bulls.Its still early but those 2 will be Miamis’s obstacles for the top spot in the east.
I think those are definitely the best match up options, I would look forward to those.
All we can say is the HEAT is on!
i will need to double up on my exercise regimen to catch up on this fast paced beach boys. my bp increases as the game progresses lol
It could be that we are slowly wearing the other teams down. You still have to make your shots., but if you are making them at a reasonably decent percentage, it’s harder and harder to keep up with. Then even the shots get easier.
And, the other side is, somehow we are playing just good enough defense to make it all work. That side of the game is also in decent shape. Ware helps so much there, but our defense is also less leaky from plenty of other players contributions too.
I still urge caution as it’s early. But, so far, so good.
The Heat has historically been one of the best conditioned teams in the NBA. However, by playing a slow paced half-court game, the conditioning/stamina was wasted. I think you hit the nail on the head. They are outlasting teams because they are in better condition (and have a deeper bench). The team’s defense appears to improve in faster paced games. Again, maybe it’s because they are wearing out the other teams by the fourth quarter.
Good point about the depth. Few teams go 9-10 deep for many meaningful minutes. I felt like we wore the Knicks down, especially KAT, who became quieter as the game progressed. And perhaps Towns is the exact type of player this higher pace impacts negatively.
Knicks lost to Bucks last night. KAT had 8 points on 2-12 shooting. I don’t like him. He’s a big immature crybaby. Big ego and little brain.
plays no d shoots lots 3 like 7ft 270 soft player.bams an overall better player,milw very big that will be a challenge.teams with lots decent bigs gonna be tough to beat,hope to add one to our roster asap