After a highly anticipated start of a redemption season for the Miami Heat, they were blitzed off their home floor in a blowout loss to the Orlando Magic 116-97. On a night where the legendary Pat Riley was honored in an unveiling of the new “Pat Riley court at Kaseya Center”, Miami disappointed and shrunk in the second half. The game was tight leading up to halftime, until the Magic blew it up with a 39-18 third quarter advantage.
The first half had some encouraging signs, including the play of the Heat’s backcourt of Terry Rozier and Tyler Herro. They played off each other well and provided the team with much needed offense to start the game. Rozier finished with a team-high 19 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists. Herro contributed 14 points on 50% shooting.
Early on, Nikola Jovic was a real bright spot and shined offensively to supplement the core four. He was spreading the floor and moved well without the basketball on cuts to the rim.
Unfortunately, the team’s top players in Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo were nowhere to be found, delivering goose eggs on the box score. They combined for 12 points on 2/13 shooting and each sported a -30 when on the floor.
The irony of Butler’s performance specifically comes after an encouraging approach to training camp and preseason. He made it known that he was excited to come out and have a great year; a sense of being “locked in”. Ultimately, it is just game one of a long new season for the Heat star. But it is not a good look to put together arguably the worst performance of his career on a night where so much optimism was instilled into the team.
Miami seemed to get away from everything that they improved on offensively during the preseason. The spacing was shaky and the ball movement was painful. It seemed like everything was a grind during the second half; not ideal this early on in the year.
The defense was just as underwhelming, as the Magic’s Paolo Banchero tore the Heat apart. He finished with a game-high 33 points and 11 rebounds on 12/24 shooting. Franz Wagner also had his imprints on the game, totaling 23 points on 10/16 from the field.
Orlando had more size at every position and their physicality rattled Miami. Their length proved to be a problem on both ends of the floor with the Heat having no answers in the rebounding department, losing 57-41 on the glass. Orlando shot 43% compared to 39%, but attempted 14 more field goals.
The most deflating part of the night was the overall energy and activity from the Heat, starting with Butler. Nobody was connected, hustling or making winning plays in the second half when the game was blown open.
There is a long season ahead, but Miami will already face their first bounce back attempt Saturday in Charlotte against the Hornets.
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it always happens. on UD night Heat also lost miserably. they forgot to play in the second half. turd appeared they got sucker punched and did not recover. oh well…go heat….
I always watch Heat games on Dish DVR. That way I can fast forward though commercials and halftimes. I pick game up 1/2 hour to an hour after it starts. Tonight was one of those times the fast forward button came in real handy.
I could only handle about 3 quarters of slow death when I decided to fast forward it to the last minute. It was an absolutely horrible game. The team was not in sync and had a terrible time penetrating Orlando’s tight defense. The rebounding sucked! Both the offense and defense broke down completely after the half-time festivities. I don’t understand why Spo didn’t pull all the starters out after the turd quarter to give them time to think and also let the young guys get some valuable experience.
For starters, here are some keys team stats:
Heat outrebounded 57-41 (39-9 on offensive boards)
Steals 8-5 Orlando (Heat had been averaging 15 per game in preseason)
FG% 39%
3PT% 32.4%
These are my grades for the rotation players:
Rozier B+
Jaquez C+
Jovic C+
Herro C+
Bryant C
Highsmith C
Robinson D
Bam D+
Butler F-
Coaching Orlando A+ Heat D-
Miami has 3 days to get it’s shit together. Otherwise, this could turn into a very long season. On the bright side, after looking at the box scores so far, there may be a few teams interested in making trades. If all else fails, it’s never too late to re-tool or re-build.
GO HEAT!!!
I haven’t seen the game, thanks for your summary because I had many questions and you answered most of them.
I expected a tough game, because they are young, tall and physical team and that is usually a problem for us. But to be honest I did not expect losing this way. I am very disappointed. And I am baffled by Jimmy’s 3 points on 1/8 shooting. Our star with a max contract. And similar stats from Bam, our second star player.
I know it is just the first game, but we are in full strength and there is no improvement compared to the previous season. I hope they will improve game by game and that it is not what we will have to endure all season.
A poor first showing. I argued last season that every game counts. Some disagreed (at least one, the same one that told me I was wrong when I said Ware would not start on day 1 of the season). Just for reference, there is this from the SS Dave Hyde:
”Two more wins would’ve earned them the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, kept them from the play-in game where Jimmy Butler was hurt and avoided their having to play top seed Boston in a futile opening round.
Four more wins would’ve got them the second seed.“
Maybe the Heat need me back home – I’ll be there Saturday.