The Miami Heat — which appeared to be in danger of missing the playoffs in late January — have coped with a season of struggle and limitation better than most had a right to expect.
Justise Winslow started the season brightly but ran into a winter of adjustment and difficulty. Hassan Whiteside is a dynamic player, but he needed to find a place in the rotation which would best suit his energies and talents. He remains a problem at the foul line, and is still a work in progress even though he’s likely to fetch a max deal before too long. Goran Dragic required more time to blend into Miami’s offense, with other moving parts around him. The Heat couldn’t get anything consistent from Gerald Green, the epitome of an erratic player.
These and other plot twists created a team which was sinking in late January, shredded in a long stretch of road games and needing to find answers with a record of 23-21.
That the Heat find themselves with a 43-31 record on the final day of March is something they would have signed up for on January 23, the morning after they fell to 23-21. They’re assured of a playoff berth. They won’t be in the 7 or 8 seeding slots. Coach Erik Spoelstra — by finding a better offensive style for his team, and by cultivating the talents of Josh Richardson — has reinforced why he’s one of the league’s better coaches. The Heat, on a larger level, have done a good job of surviving this season.
This is why Wednesday night at Staples Center in Los Angeles was so frustrating for the Heat… and could become “that game” one month from now.
Julius Randle tough clutch shot vs The Heat pic.twitter.com/6qLg7UzKuU
— Gifdsports (@gifdsports) March 31, 2016
When Julius Randle completed this gorgeous one-on-one move, and the Heat couldn’t reply with a tying or winning bucket in the remaining 1.9 seconds, Miami lost not just to a bad Laker team; the Heat fell to the team whose locker room had been disrupted by the D’Angelo Russell incident, an absurd event which dominated the NBA news cycle on Wednesday.
Losing to bad teams is one thing; losing to bad teams which are immersed in dysfunction and aren’t in a position to play well is quite another. The Lakers hit only 36 percent of their shots on Wednesday. Russell labored to a 6-of-19 shooting performance. Randle hit the game-winner, but finished 4-of-11 from the field. Lou Williams? 2-of-7. The Lakers didn’t establish a high standard of play.
Miami established a lower one.
The Heat coughed up 17 turnovers, repeatedly forfeiting possessions in the face of very little resistance. Miami missed nearly half of its 26 foul shots (11) and recalled its three-point nightmares before the All-Star break with just three makes in 17 tries. Joe Johnson was acquired a month ago to relieve those worries, but he didn’t provide solutions against the Lakers. Richardson — whose evolution as a three-point shooter has been an important part of the Heat’s renewal since the 23-21 low point — turned into a pumpkin on this trip to the West Coast. Richardson went 0-for-8 from the field, 0-for-4 from three-point land.
These deficits were enough to wipe away a 26-point, 10-rebound, 5-assist night from Dwyane Wade, who hit over 56 percent of his field goals but settled for a long jumper in a tied game at the end of regulation.
The Heat lost a game no playoff team should lose. They just might have suffered the kind of loss which — while only one game in an ocean of 82 — casts an unusually large shadow over the postseason.
The image above is taken from last season’s Game 82 between the San Antonio Spurs and the New Orleans Pelicans. The Spurs’ loss in that game pushed them from the 2 seed all the way down to the 6 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. The Spurs therefore lost home-court advantage in not one series, but two. They could have put themselves in prime position to meet the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, but instead fell into a matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers… without Game 7 on their home floor.
The Spurs, as you know, lost that Game 7 in the first round.
Their defeat at the hands of the Pelicans two weeks earlier was as costly a regular season loss as one could possibly imagine.
The Heat’s loss to the Lakers won’t cost them the 2 seed in the East, but it could very well cost them the 3 seed and push them to 6 before this multi-team chase is all over. As much as the Heat might privately feel confident about playing Cleveland in a potential 1-4 East semifinal, a 2-versus-3 matchup with Toronto would give them an advantage in terms of playoff experience. Not getting the 3 seed would deprive the Heat of a realistic chance at an East Finals appearance. Falling to the distracted and disjointed Lakers could become the regular season loss which causes a playoff foundation to crumble.
The Miami Heat might have lost “that game,” akin to the Spurs in New Orleans a year ago. They will probably have to win in Portland and (over a week later) Detroit or Boston, maybe in all three places, in order for this ludicrous Laker loss to not haunt them on the golf course in July.
