MIAMI – With the Miami Heat winning three straight Friday night after beating the Atlanta Hawks, the results have been a far cry from what they were throughout the month. After the Heat went on a 10-game skid throughout this month, the team has turned it around in the past three games as star Bam Adebayo spoke about what led to them being in a groove.
Tyler Herro led the team with 36 points on an efficient 13 of 17 shooting from the field while Adebayo finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds to go along with four assists and three steals. When asked what has led to the three-game winning streak, Adebayo would have a simple answer which led to him emphasizing how they “didn't let go of the rope.”
“Failure,” Adebayo said with a laugh after. “But you know, we didn't let go of the rope. We've been preaching that since we've been on that ten-game losing streak. Like I said, you never know what can happen. We didn't let go, now we’re streaking.”
Heat making “tremendous progress” on offense
With the Heat coming off a win over Jimmy Butler and the Golden State Warriors, Miami shot the lights out in that game, especially from deep where they made 68 percent of them. While they had a slow one-of-eight start from that range against Atlanta, they turned it around where when the game ended, the team shot 53.7 percent from the field and 54.5 percent from deep.
It all comes down to the Heat's process which head coach Erik Spoelstra has said even since the 10-game losing streak how it's been improving. After the win over the Hawks, Spoelstra said there is “tremendous progress with our offense.”
“The process, we started to see it gaining traction three or four weeks ago,” Spoelstra said. “Yes, we had to conquer some demons in the fourth quarter. But you take those first three quarters, that offense was, that's the vision of where we want this thing going. It's not going to be all perfect. You know, we're trying to put this thing together in a short period of time, and with some of the injuries and Wiggs being out, like we're not making that as an excuse, it's just that that's kind of the reality.”
“Some of these things take time,” Spoelstra continued. “But we're seeing tremendous progress with our offense, and it's not just based on the result of the wins the last three games, our fourth-quarter offense was better, you know, tonight, but the process was better the last two games, it was better even before that. The Houston game, I saw a better process. There was pain from the loss, but the process was better. And you keep on doing it and doing it consistently, then eventually, hopefully, the karma changes.
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Heat's Tyler Herro on what “isn't acceptable”
Despite the improvement from the Heat, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows on Thursday night as Atlanta started on a 12-2 run which led to an early timeout from Spoelstra. The Hawls were dictating their own pace with Miami paying the price, but it wasn't until the second quarter that the home team got back into the rhythm and proceeded to play with intention.
Herro would say to ClutchPoints after the contest that they were just “settling into the game” and once the unit started to succeed on defense, it led to the offense coming into form.
“I mean, just settling into the game,” Herro said. “Most importantly, getting stops on defense, turning our stops into easy transition buckets, just getting out and running, that's important. Continuing to come out to games faster in what we need to do. 12-2 start isn't acceptable, we can't put ourselves in that hole.”
At any rate, Miami is now 32-41 which puts them in 10th in the Eastern Conference as the team now goes on the road for three games, the first being on Saturday against the Philadephia 76ers.
