Just a few months after their Cinderella run to the NBA Finals, the Miami Heat are struggling to open the 2020-21 season.
After a frustrating 107-105 loss to the Boston Celtics, the Heat stand at a dismal 3-4, and big man Bam Adebayo knows that now is the time to rectify the situation.
“I mean, we’re to the point where we got to figure this out, before it’s too late,” said Adebayo. “We don’t want to build a habit of, ‘OK, we’ll get the next game. OK, we’ll get the next game.’ Because then we’ll look up and we’re at the eighth seed. We need to fix this situation right now.”
On Wednesday, the Heat fell behind early by a sizable margin to the Celtics. Down by 10 with just over a minute left, Miami made a furious run to tie the game, only to lose on a basket by unheralded Boston reserve guard Payton Pritchard just before the buzzer.
Many of the Heat’s troubles can be traced to the offensive end. They currently rank just 24th in offensive rating, 27th in points per game and 16th in 3-point shooting.
Last season, 3-point shooting was a big strength of the team, as Miami was second in the NBA in 3-point shooting accuracy.
