#miami-heat

#miami-heat

It's a competitive group. Where you think you may have advantages if you're the other team, they make up for it with their activity and their toughness. They have a lot of belief and spirit about them that's great. And then offensively - wow. They really play a collective game. The ball moves, they cut, they move great without the ball. They find open players. It's really a fun group to watch.

You know that new offensive approach everyone keeps raving about? The one that feels like it has already changed what's possible for the Heat this season? Well, as innovative as it appears for them, it's actually modeled off of the Memphis Grizzlies' approach from last season. In fact, Spoelstra and his staff actually consulted with former Grizzlies assistant Noah LaRoche before installing the motion-based offense, per ESPN's Brian Windhorst.

The Miami Heat broke their record for points in a single half on Friday night against the Memphis Grizzlies, scoring 86, four more than their previous total that has been set three times. Bam Adebayo led the charge with 20 points, scoring 18 first-quarter points with four 3-pointers; Simone Fontecchio had 14 points on four made threes of his own in his lone eight-minute stint;

The Heat were obviously without their top scorer in Tyler Herro, and yet they still made it a competitive game down to the wire in Orlando. Anytime a team goes on the road missing a crucial part of their equation and still stays in the game until the final minutes, that always says something about their resilience. Having that element to your group means your effort level isn't going to waiver based on what your personal is.

The Miami Heat have a real chance to surprise folks during the 2025-26 NBA season. Now, that's partly due to the relative lack of expectations for this team, but it's also a belief built around real, tangible excitement for a young core that impressed all offseason. Pelle Larsson had a sensational summer. Nikola Jovic starred at EuroBasket. Kel'el Ware looked unstoppable in the preseason. All three, plus first-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis, figured to play a massive part in Miami surprising all the skeptics this season.

It has not been a great October for the Miami Heat after emerging from the preseason slate as the only team in the NBA not to pick up a win. Some of the flaws that hindered Miami can be chalked up to the preseason, and none of it will matter as games start for real this week. But some other glaring red flags have to be addressed if Miami is going to have any hope of surviving the 2025/26 campaign.

Even though the Heat weren't very successful as a team this preseason, there were some bright spots. The play of Norman Powell was certainly one of them. Powell closed the preseason by averaging 16 points on 45 percent shooting from the field and 40 percent shooting from 3-point range. If nothing else, it does seem as if the Heat will be able to rely on Powell as a strong contributor to the team.

Rather than continuing to chase a Giannis Antetokounmpo daydream that keeps going nowhere, the Heat could take care of this problem without even looking outside of the Southeast Division. While the Atlanta Hawks aren't necessarily ready to split from four-time All-Star Trae Young, they will not extend his contract before the start of its final guaranteed season, per Fred Katz and Joe Vardon of The Athletic.