The Heat aren’t off to a good start this season. Via the Miami Herald:
It has been less than four months since the Miami Heat was playing in the 2020 NBA Finals. Barely more than 100 days have passed since Jimmy Butler was going toe to toe with LeBron James — and often besting the superstar — with a championship on the line.
A new season is now more than a quarter of the way done and the Heat is a shell of the team that tore through the 2020 NBA Bubble in Lake Buenva Vista. Miami hit a new low point Wednesday with a 103-100 loss to the Washington Wizards at AmericanAirlines Arena.
For the second straight game, the Heat (7-14) had control deep into the second half only to let it slip away. For the second game, Miami jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first half and led for the vast majority of the second half, and still managed to lose at home to one of the worst teams in the NBA…
The Heat has now lost 10 of its last 13, including 2 of 3 since All-Star forward Jimmy Butler returned after missing nearly three weeks because of the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
Now, to be fair of course, lots of key Heat players have missed plenty of games. The squad proved during their run to the Finals that they have great chemistry, but that’s not much help when guys are in and out of the lineup. But at some point, it would be nice to see the Heat looking like what is expected of them.
Tonight, Miami had Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, Jimmy Butler, Kelly Olynyk and Bam Adebayo in the starting lineup, with Goran Dragic, and Andre Iguodala each playing over 20 minutes off the bench. But still fell, 103-100.
In the win for the Wizards, Bradley Beal scored 32, but no other DC players scored above 13. But threes-pointers hit, and the Wizards claimed victory.
