Game 46: Miami vs Blazers, January 19th, 730 PM EST

[Bishop45]

PJ deserves to always be on a contending team, special type of player

[AirP.]

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[AirP.]

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[somerandomdude]

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I know we'll have some apologists, but that second tech was BS.

The ref's reasoning doesn't even make sense because Jimmy had walked away by then and wasn't really speaking to anyone.

[dshearn]

This team has so much depth. I think more than any other Heat team that I remember

It is a thing....

This depth 2 years ago may have beat that lakers team in the bubble.


I like the flexability they have in rotations, but when they start to nail down the playoff rosters.... Gabe has to be the first man up at Point, and i am not entirely sure Robinson should be in it. Give him 5-8 mins to see if his head is straight and get him back out if it isnt. S Gabe, Strus and Martin are earning their minutes.

[greg4012]

The two way play of our supporting players has been a joy to watch.

Not that long ago it felt like we could never have a lineup in the game that could succeed on both sides of the ball

[somerandomdude]

Anyway, gonna give my thoughts on some concerns, and I'll probably catch hate for it, but I'll leave it as a spoiler so I don't ruin anyone's night:

Spoiler:

* When you have to exert that much energy to create separation against teams like the Raptors and Trailblazers, you're gonna be exhausted by the time the playoffs roll around. This is especially important for a team like ours who works their players harder than other teams during off days
* Blazers were tied with 7min left and within 5pts with 4 minutes left. Raps were in it till the last few possessions. Again, we're gonna run our guys to the ground if we don't start getting big leads and holding them early on
* Nurkic' foul trouble throughout the game was certainly helpful; he only played 25min and had 18pts and 14reb.
* I was so happy with Billups pulling Nurkic out in the 4th. That was a big mistake for them, one that I'd actually expect from Spo. Nurkic gave them way better odds of winning that game

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Anyway, gonna give my thoughts on some concerns, and I'll probably catch hate for it, but I'll leave it as a spoiler so I don't ruin anyone's night:

Spoiler:

* When you have to exert that much energy to create separation against teams like the Raptors and Trailblazers, you're gonna be exhausted by the time the playoffs roll around. This is especially important for a team like ours who works their players harder than other teams during off days
* Blazers were tied with 7min left and within 5pts with 4 minutes left. Raps were in it till the last few possessions. Again, we're gonna run our guys to the ground if we don't start getting big leads and holding them early on
* Nurkic' foul trouble throughout the game was certainly helpful; he only played 25min and had 18pts and 14reb.
* I was so happy with Billups pulling Nurkic out in the 4th. That was a big mistake for them, one that I'd actually expect from Spo. Nurkic gave them way better odds of winning that game

Tougher to get big leads and hold them when we only have 50% of our guys and 1 of our top 5 players but yea I agree we need to be more disciplined at times and hold leads so guys can rest.

[Wiltside]

I know we all want to see Yurt, and I’m no exception, but how about some love to The Mechanic.

12pts, 8rbs, 1ast, 1stl, 5/6fg, +13 in 15 mins.

Can’t ask for much more in your backup 5. DedGOAT.

[HeatFanLifer]

Anyway, gonna give my thoughts on some concerns, and I'll probably catch hate for it, but I'll leave it as a spoiler so I don't ruin anyone's night:

Spoiler:

* When you have to exert that much energy to create separation against teams like the Raptors and Trailblazers, you're gonna be exhausted by the time the playoffs roll around. This is especially important for a team like ours who works their players harder than other teams during off days
* Blazers were tied with 7min left and within 5pts with 4 minutes left. Raps were in it till the last few possessions. Again, we're gonna run our guys to the ground if we don't start getting big leads and holding them early on
* Nurkic' foul trouble throughout the game was certainly helpful; he only played 25min and had 18pts and 14reb.
* I was so happy with Billups pulling Nurkic out in the 4th. That was a big mistake for them, one that I'd actually expect from Spo. Nurkic gave them way better odds of winning that game

No hate from me breh. You do have some good points, but to counter your point about fatigue:

Spoiler:

1) A lot of the team has already had many days off due to covid/injuries. We are 45 games into the season and the player with the most games played is Lowry at 39 (I’m very surprised) and Robinson with 41 but only 36 starts.
2) The bench is deep so starters are not playing heavy minutes
3) Only 16 more games on the road and no more trips out west
4) The great record is giving the team less urgency to play likes each game is a must win
5) All star break is only a month away.
6) An almost 14 day home stand in early March, just weeks before the playoffs start.

One thing I do agree though is the intensity level has dropped down a notch. Small ball wears players out. I think the all star break will help some of that, but hopefully we can get more minutes for Yurt7 and Dedmon at center to keep this team healthy and less fatigued.

[MHeat0279]

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Some of y’all don’t deserve this man! Waiting on the ridiculous defensive matchup numbers to be posted before I send them in too.

Nice stats, lets see the consistency now.

[fishfuego.]

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Some of y’all don’t deserve this man! Waiting on the ridiculous defensive matchup numbers to be posted before I send them in too.

Nice stats, lets see the consistency now.

The way Bam played last night, it was Bam the star. I feel he can play like this every night. But the inconsistency is real, not a made up dream, and when Bam plays soft, at that point the real question is, does he deserves the big pay salary he makes. So the fans may be hard on Bam at times( deservedly so), but the question should never be do we fans deserve such player, but does such player deserves such a salary.

[TroubleS0me]

bad ejection for Jimmy.

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Read on Twitter

Some of y’all don’t deserve this man! Waiting on the ridiculous defensive matchup numbers to be posted before I send them in too.

Nice stats, lets see the consistency now.

The way Bam played last night, it was Bam the star. I feel he can play like this every night. But the inconsistency is real, not a made up dream, and when Bam plays soft, at that point the real question is, does he deserves the big pay salary he makes. So the fans may be hard on Bam at times( deservedly so), but the question should never be do we fans deserve such player, but does such player deserves such a salary.

Bam NEVER plays soft. Ever. He just doesn’t shoot as much as y’all want, nothing soft about that. Herro shouldn’t pass over some shots then

[Wiltside]

It's pretty clear that Bam is one of the best bigs in the NBA. Where he ranks is subjective.

Jokic
Giannis
Embiid
Davis
Towns
Gobert
Adebayo
Sabonis
Ayton
Allen
Capela
Randle
Siakam

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch too, but the point is, he's in that conversation. His defense is clearly top tier along with Giannis and Gobert. His offense is coming around, albeit he still has a ways to go. His jumper has come A LONG way though.

[DayofMourning]

Watched the 4th quarter again, starting when Bam checked in with 7 minutes left. Portland hit a quick jumper to get to 87 points. For the next 6 minutes Portland scored 3 points. It was Gabe, Martin, Strus, Tucker and Bam just killing it on defense. Bam was God level. He scored 10 points in that span I think along with his acting as the center piece of the defense. That's the bar right there moving forward. When things aren't going well we need to go to that murder lineup.

[MHeat0279]

Nice stats, lets see the consistency now.

The way Bam played last night, it was Bam the star. I feel he can play like this every night. But the inconsistency is real, not a made up dream, and when Bam plays soft, at that point the real question is, does he deserves the big pay salary he makes. So the fans may be hard on Bam at times( deservedly so), but the question should never be do we fans deserve such player, but does such player deserves such a salary.

Bam NEVER plays soft. Ever. He just doesn’t shoot as much as y’all want, nothing soft about that. Herro shouldn’t pass over some shots then

Bam tends to play tentatively and way too passive, i can understand such play when you have a stronger taller player ( he usually struggles with those) but there is not reason to play like that when you can exploit mismatches.

[MHeat0279]

Bam is a very good player especially on defense, his offense is improving, rather slow but its improving. Now having said that he is not the answer at center, whenever we face a taller, stronger player we will struggle again to get rebounds and we will surrender a bunch of easy buckets close to the rim, we can not have that come playoffs, we can not allow opponents to score easily close to the rim.