The Miami Heat are 8-1. They’ve got the fifth best offense and the second best defense in the league. Their average margin of victory is second in the league.
The Miami Heat are a scary good team, and the fact that they are holding their first full practice today makes them even scarier
Under normal circumstances, the Heat don’t hold practices the day after back-to-back games or the day after a road game. Taking that into account, combined with the lockout-shortened 66-game schedule, that would leave Miami with 22 opportunities to hold practice this season. However, coach Erik Spoelstra doesn’t see it that way.
“Out of 22, I counted 11½, maybe, that we can have full scale, full contact, that we’re used to at the Miami Heat. Now, we can have 22 where you can do something and shooting, but maybe not contact. So it’s considerably less (then last season). Last year we had 76 practices.“
Add to this that Miami has played a third of its games so far without Dwyane Wade and we’re now reaching stratospheric expectations for this team. They’ll certainly lose more games this season, but I’ll be damned if I’ll bet against them in any of them.
I know a lot of people don’t want to buy into that hype. But the results are what they are. And now that they’re practicing, maybe they can finally get on the same page.