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Having grown tired of the lack of talent/injuries excuse that I keep hearing for the Heats performance this season, I decided to check out the teams ahead of us. Someone explain to me why the Raptors are so much better than we are.

The Raptors are currently the #2 seed in the East and 11 1/2 games ahead of us. Their "Big 3" consists of ...

1. Kyle Lowry ... 41% FG & 32% 3pt%
2. DeMar DeRozan ... 39% FG & 20% 3pt%
3. ?????

I have no idea who to list as the 3rd member of their Big 3, since they don't have another player on their roster that could start for this team except as an injury fill-in. And btw DeMar DeRozan has missed 21 games this season, which is more than Wade has missed.

Can someone help me out here? Why are the Raptors so much better than we are?

Coaching differences = record difference.

Doesn't Matter to me what their record is. Thats one team I know we could beat in a 7 game series.

Paz wrote:Coaching differences = record difference.

^that + better bench
The third "star" starter of Toronto is Valanciunas, who averages 12 ppg and 9 rpg.
Then there's Lou Williams who scores 15 ppg in 25 min off the bench plus rotational players Vasquez, Ross, Patterson, Amir and James Johnson who all score more than 8 ppg...

they are deep. they bascially have a starter in williams playing on their bench. they are young and athletic and lowry has been the best PG in the east. Raptors fans use to trash casey, and i'm sure they still do.

Blah. They have familiarity and are healthy. If Lowry and DeRozan misses as many games as Bosh and Wade and if Williams is out for the season just like McRoberts, they would suck too. I think if Miami is relatively healthy with Dragic, Whiteside, Wade, Bosh, Deng, Chalmers, McRoberts adn Birdman, we are at the top of the conference with Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago and Toronto. We do need another reliable scoring swing-man for our bench though.

So is big 3 the only team measurement parameter? Wow the past 4 years has turned our fanbase's brains into mush.

They have one of the deepest benches in the league

Paz wrote:Coaching differences = record difference.

Bollox

Injuries and continuity are the difference.

How many games have our big 3 let alone our starting 5 played together.

0 - that's zero!!

i agree that injuries have hampered our season greatly but you have to admit that our coach put 0 effort into offensive creation. He has stated many times that the emphasis is on defense and that good defense creates good offense. If Spo put half as much effort into offense as he does in defense (which isn't great anyways), we would have a better record.

Injuries have killed our season. Spo buried it, though.

Paz wrote:i agree that injuries have hampered our season greatly but you have to admit that our coach put 0 effort into offensive creation. He has stated many times that the emphasis is on defense and that good defense creates good offense. If Spo put half as much effort into offense as he does in defense (which isn't great anyways), we would have a better record.

Injuries have killed our season. Spo buried it, though.

Sampdero's tits know more about coaching than you are exhibiting.

HIF wrote:

Paz wrote:i agree that injuries have hampered our season greatly but you have to admit that our coach put 0 effort into offensive creation. He has stated many times that the emphasis is on defense and that good defense creates good offense. If Spo put half as much effort into offense as he does in defense (which isn't great anyways), we would have a better record.

Injuries have killed our season. Spo buried it, though.

Sampdero's tits know more about coaching than you are exhibiting.

Good one. I stick to my opinion about the lack of offensive coaching by Spo. An example is us running the horns constantly with Colemers as our backcourt. Spo could possibly be a good coach but he hasn't shown any brilliance in offensive play creation whatsoever. His most recent blunder is that he doesn't run any plays to feed the post for Whiteside when it's clear he ought to.

I watched both teams - I am from Toronto, even both teams were playing at the same time.

Identity, deeper bench, and familiarity system/ knowing their roles were the difference.
Their leader (Lowry) has been playing almost every single game. Their record would have been different if Lowry went down instead of Demar.

What is funny to me is to listen to some posters who think that Basketball is like playing Madden Football where the coach selects a play and the players just execute whatever he says therefore if the play fails, it's the coaches fault for not picking the right play.

If we learned anything in the Big 3 era is that you can only make so many adjustments during a season without completely changing your system. That is what the off-season is for, BIG adjustments. If anything Spo went to a slower pace based on his personnel when Wade and McRoberts went down and now is trying to speed up the pace with Dragic on the team. Look, the ball movement has been good the last few games but the shooting (finishing) has been horrendous PLUS we are turning the ball over (lack of familiarity)!

This is not going to happen overnight and while the coach is not exempt from guilt in some cases, he is not the problem. This is a retooling job. You don't change over 50% of your roster from last season and don't expect to struggle. This is not a complete team like the Warriors where you plugin Steve Kerr and look like a genius or even the Milwaukee Bucks who have much more talent than we did at the beginning of the season. We need to keep some perspective.

greg4012 wrote:So is big 3 the only team measurement parameter? Wow the past 4 years has turned our fanbase's brains into mush.

They have one of the deepest benches in the league

They have a deep bench? I'd say it's more a matter of their head coach having a plan. There's nothing special on that bench aside from maybe Lou Williams. Available talent is being used effectively ... and excuses aren't being made.

If you want to try to make the case that Raptors have more talent that the Heat, I'd love to hear it.

heat4life wrote:If we learned anything in the Big 3 era is that you can only make so many adjustments during a season without completely changing your system. That is what the off-season is for, BIG adjustments.

You make adjustments, big or small, as they are needed. The idea that you stick with a failing system all season because "big adjustments" are for the offseason is

That's how coaches lose their players. Nobody wants to go out there and bust their ass for 6 months knowing that they are playing for nothing because their head coach can't or won't change the system he started the season with.

ryanpuge wrote:I watched both teams - I am from Toronto, even both teams were playing at the same time.

Identity, deeper bench, and familiarity system/ knowing their roles were the difference.
Their leader (Lowry) has been playing almost every single game. Their record would have been different if Lowry went down instead of Demar.

9 months ago we were all talking about signing their leader to be our 4th best player. I don't want to hear about how good or important Lowry is.

HIF wrote:

Paz wrote:Coaching differences = record difference.

Bollox

Injuries and continuity are the difference.

How many games have our big 3 let alone our starting 5 played together.

0 - that's zero!!

So you'd rather have Lowry, DeRozan, and Valanciunas?

If you're going to accept injuries as an excuse, then we better dump Wade asap, because otherwise we'll keep losing until he retires.

contract wrote:

ryanpuge wrote:I watched both teams - I am from Toronto, even both teams were playing at the same time.

Identity, deeper bench, and familiarity system/ knowing their roles were the difference.
Their leader (Lowry) has been playing almost every single game. Their record would have been different if Lowry went down instead of Demar.

9 months ago we were all talking about signing their leader to be our 4th best player. I don't want to hear about how good or important Lowry is.

Many on this board gush about how dominant Whiteside is, or how good Wade still is, but then with their next breath they say the Heat doesn't have enough to play .500 ball.

I don't know how some people manage such a level of cognitive dissonance.

If we're just talking about talent, there are a very, very small number of teams in the east with more talent than our roster. The vast differences in level of play come from cohesion, familiarity, and most of all the extreme disparity in quality of the coaches.

contract wrote:

heat4life wrote:If we learned anything in the Big 3 era is that you can only make so many adjustments during a season without completely changing your system. That is what the off-season is for, BIG adjustments.

You make adjustments, big or small, as they are needed. The idea that you stick with a failing system all season because "big adjustments" are for the offseason is

That's how coaches lose their players. Nobody wants to go out there and bust their ass for 6 months knowing that they are playing for nothing because their head coach can't or won't change the system he started the season with.

And didn't the coach go out there and made those adjustments? We went from a team looking to have the most possession to dead last in possessions because we had to slow the pace. We had a bad collection of players. Overestimated Cole and Chalmers, overestimated the contributions of Ennis and Napier. The roster was put together quickly over the summer due to the LeBron move. Based on the contracts Riley put in place, the idea was to have flexibility to make moves just as the one's we made. I still don't get where Spoelstra is 100% to blame when this has been a total mess from the Summer on (poor roster, health, lack of continuity).