With the playoffs right around the corner, teams are vying for the chance to get their ideal seed in their conference. With the way the Miami Heat have been playing lately, it seems like they don’t even want the top seed heading into the playoffs. They’re on a four-game losing streak and not to particularly stacked teams either. They lost to the Sixers without both Harden and Embiid, Golden State without Steph, Klay, or Draymond, and the Knicks without Julius Randle. On top of all of that, tension between Jimmy Butler and Udonis Haslem arose when Golden State went on a 19-0 run to start the second half. While this situation was played down by both Spoeltra and the players, it’s something worth monitoring for the future.
One aspect that’s been hurting the Heat in this stretch has been their production from bench players. With Herro out for two of these games and inconsistent for the other two, Miami was unable to find reliable scoring off the bench like they usually have. In the two games Herro played, he only averaged 11.5 points and shot 34.5% from the field. For the season, Miami is averaging 40.1 bench points per game, tied with Houston for the most in the league. In the last four games, they are only averaging 31 points off the bench. This puts them in the bottom 5 in bench points in this stretch of games.
Rebounding and scoring have also been difficult for this Heat team during this stretch. Miami ranks dead last in rebounding and 28th in points in the last four games. Bam Adebayo is averaging only 8.3 rebounds in the last four games, as opposed to the 10.1 rebounds he’s averaging on the season. With Markieff Morris back into the fold, Spoeltra has struggled with finding the rotation that works best for them. Coach Spoeltra and the players need to figure this situation out if they are aiming to make a deep run in the playoffs.
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