3 biggest positives, negatives for Heat through 30 games

We are officially at the 30-game mark for the Miami Heat, where they are an even 15-15 with sole possession of the No. 8 seed in the East! What have been the positives and negatives at this stage of the season?! Let’s examine!

Positives:

Young players have shown progress:

While Kel’el Ware has been the Heat’s biggest — figuratively, and literally — rising star, they’ve seen tangible progress in the development of Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Pelle Larsson. His decision-making hasn’t been consistently good lately, but Jaquez has been one of the Heat’s best play finishers. Larsson continues to grow as one of the Heat’s top point-of-attack defenders.

Larsson’s shooting has regressed since the start of the season, but he’s still shooting 37.3 percent on spot-up 3-pointers (2.5 3PA). When his motor and mentality are right, Ware can be a dominant force on both ends. Contrary to popular belief, his consistency remains, well, inconsistent. But he’s continuing to make steps in the right direction, as are the Heat’s other young players.

They are playing fast … kind of?!:

Technically, yes, the Heat are playing much faster. They still lead the NBA in pace, a thought that was inconceivable over the last several years. However, since the start of December, Miami’s pace has crashed back down to Earth, negatively affecting its offensive output. At some point or another, we’ll get a better evaluation on whether the first 20 or so games were an aberration, or this most recent stretch.

For the most part, Norman Powell’s addition has helped:

At the very least, it’s been a good season for first-year Heat guard Norman Powell. He’s done a lot to carry this offense, even though he’s also in a little bit of a skid. He’s shooting just 40.2 percent from the floor and 29.6 percent from beyond the arc over his last seven games. In his first 18? 50.9 percent from the floor and 45.5 percent from deep. Those numbers better align with his track record, even though he was due for some regression. Nevertheless, how he’s fit offensively amid Tyler Herro’s injury-plagued season has been encouraging.

Negatives:

Rest of NBA has adjusted to the Miami Heat’s new offense:

You could only speed the pace up without any ball screens for oh so long. The rest of the league has adjusted. It doesn’t help that the Heat don’t have enough shooting. They may be top-8 in 3-point efficiency, but they are hoisting the 8th-fewest long-range attempts per possession.

It doesn’t help that three of their best high-volume 3-point shooters (Powell, Herro, Simone Fontecchio) have either regressed or are hurt entirely. Heat must counter the counter, although the team’s talent (or lack thereof) may not be enough to mask their deficiencies anyway offensively.

Double-big lineup hasn’t worked:

As much as everyone — myself included — would like to see Ware and Adebayo play more together, their lineups have been bad. Like, really bad. Like, one of the worst in the NBA-type bad. According to NBA.com’s tracking data, among the 894 two-man duos that have played at least 175 minutes, they rank in the 4th percentile in NET Rating (-14.7).

In non-garbage-time situations, they are a minus-16.0 (4th percentile) with a 6th percentile offense (107.1) and a 9th percentile defense (123.1), according to Cleaning The Glass. Yikes! It’s bad no matter how you slice the pie.

That doesn’t mean head coach Erik Spoelstra should abandon it entirely, but it’s pretty glaring how abhorrent they’ve been together. If this is the so-called frontcourt of the future, it will have to be figured out sooner rather than later.

They’ve been worse on the glass:

You could argue this is Erik Spoelstra’s worst rebounding team since 2014-15. In six of the last eight seasons leading up to 2024-25, Miami ranked in the top-9 in defensive rebound percentage, including a top-4 mark each of the last three years. Through 30 games, however, Miami is No. 19 in defensive rebound percentage at 68.6. The lack of box outs and extra efforts on the long rebounds has been a bit concerning; most of rebounding is simply effort. Rebounding wins championships, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

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