There’s losing, and there’s getting humiliated.
If you were to categorize the Miami Heat’s 122-94 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday, it’s much closer to the latter than it was the former.
This comes on the heels of losing to the Timberwolves inside Kaseya Center, 125-115, four days prior. While Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was encouraged with his team’s effort in that game, he was not after their 28-point loss.
“We showed less of a spirit on this one,” he said. “The one on Saturday, we had a spirit to fight until the end. That’s what is most disappointing to me as the head coach: The last 6 minutes, it felt like we let it go. At that point, we weren’t going to win the game. … But, still, what you have is your spirit and keep on fighting, not just to let it go there at the end.”
Miami shot just 35.7 percent from the floor, coughing up the rock 17 times while ranking in the 1st percentile in offensive rating (85.7), according to Cleaning The Glass.
“We got a lot to work on as a team,” Heat captain Bam Adebayo said. “We can’t lose our focus when somebody makes a run or shots aren’t falling. We gotta continue to play our style of basketball — playing in transition, swing the ball collectively and get each other open shots.”
Minnesota outscored Miami 61-40 in the second half, including a 26-9 run over a near-nine-minute stretch in the second half. At one point, the Heat had just five points through the first 8:19 of the fourth quarter, finishing 5-for-20, including 2-of-12 from 3-point range.
The Heat’s offense looked pretty discombobulated all night, rim efficiency (or lack thereof) not withstanding.
Their 28-point defeat was another episode of their struggles against the league’s best defenses. Minnesota slowed the Heat down and used its overwhelming size and athleticism to its advantage. If the Heat have any aspirations at making a run, these are trends that can’t continue happening — especially once they become fully healthy.
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I think the team has a Tyler Herro problem. They are averaging 113.85 in the games he’s played and 122 without him.
If the offense is going to get worse, and we all know the defense gets worse, how do you play him?
I get it maybe a timing thing, where as he plays more with the squad, he’d gel. But seems crazy to break up what’s working to force him in.
I guess we’ll see.
Herro isn’t the problem. Inconsistent play from most of the team(except Powell and Jaquez) is. It’s hard to go toe to toe with top tier teams when you don’t have an alpha male leader and you don’t have the horses. Miami has had trouble holding their own against plus .500 teams for a few years. As I recall, this started out as a gap year/season.
Is t the problem aint a solution neither. Mia needs a ss point blank
I agree. But who and how? I don’t believe teams are close to trading their ss. Talk of Giannis and Ant is just material for speculation. Any potential available players come with deficiencies. Trae, Ja, Kawhi. So I think they can only add B level players and that likely won’t make them contenders.
Yup. They will need to give someone up to get someone. If not a player, a high pick or two. Miami is so far behind teams like OKC, San Antonio, Boston (even without Tatum), etc., it will be very difficult for the team to become competitive with top tier teams without a rebuild.
Meanwhile, they and we are going to be on a roller coaster ride that ranges game to game from euphoria to misery.
hes a problem beginning of year w/o him they were scoring at will he comes back things look different.cant trade him fast enough.wiggy and niko have been inconsistent from day 1 with wiggy the better player of two.but when u have 4 quality players bam ware powell jjj u are a decent team.so i enjoy eric and rcs postings im good
Herro has played in 7 of the 37 games. You can talk about pace when he’s been in but not when he isn’t. What affect the pace in those games – his ghost? Psychic powers?
I’m not so sure about Bam right now. He hasn’t played very well for several weeks now.
I still think this team is over performing and that is enough to make me enjoy most of their games, even though I might have liked a re-set season.
But on Tyler, Maybe you can talk about the Wolves, Orlando and Detroit as top teams, but in his 7 games, they’ve played Dallas twice, Clippers, and the Bucks too.
The fact of the matter is (though a small sample), the team is not scoring as much when Tyler is playing. They also have a losing 3-4 record.
So overall in Tyler’s 7 games, they are not as good as they are without him. Again, I’ll state it could change, more the team practices and plays, they more it could gel. But right now, I see it as a Tyler problem.
where u been the one post wonder tys a problem 4 sure
Not much to talk about with this team. They are a fun group to watch most nights, but they aren’t a real threat with the current construction.
They have some players with upside, but they don’t have a super star, or even a player who appears to be a threat to become one. This isn’t a Jimmy Butler year, where I think they can make noise in the playoffs. This isn’t last year, where I thought they should lean into the tank for a higher pick.
I guess if they start a long losing streak, I can start hyping the tank for the 2026 draft pick they have, but as it stands, Miami is a 7,8, 9 or 10 seed, who will likely be out in the first round of the playoffs (but hopefully not in as excruciating fashion as last year).
there still a pretty good team,i want to see who kelel ware is think his upside might be close to wemby,for whatever bam reason the tool box is not being utilized to its fullest.bam just needs to take a back seat be more of a dirty player and let wemby jr have the ball on offense.i know what bam norm jjj are not sure what ware is he could be a ss or all star or maybe just another guy