Miami Heat scrap their way to a successful road trip
The Miami Heat were in Phoenix tonight to cap off their road trip against the Suns.
No Tyler Herro, Davion Mitchell, and Kel’el Ware again, but the questionable statuses of Kasparas Jakucionis, Norman Powell, and Andrew Wiggins all ended up being available.
On the other side of things, the Suns were without both Devin Booker and Jalen Green.
It wasn’t a pretty offensive game, as it consisted of missed threes, free throw trips, and plenty of reviews. Bam Adebayo’s scoring continued, Jaime Jaquez Jr got in a flow late, and the Heat got a much needed win to end the trip.
So let’s discuss some takeaways tonight:
1. One Heat player going underrated for doing the dirty work.
The role of Andrew Wiggins changes on the daily. Sometimes he’s a number one or two option in a lineup, looked at to be the ultra aggressive on-ball threat. Other times he’s a spacer, as his three ball has been rather consistent spaced out on that weak-side for kick-outs. But as of late, he’s been a real dirty work, do-it-all guy for this team on both ends of the floor. The defensive box-outs, the offensive rebounding and put-backs, the scrappy plays in-between. He’s not always the center of attention after wins or losses, but he’s been pretty consistent in his underrated fashion.
2. The free throw attempt bump.
This is a Heat team that increased their tempo and played fast for much of the season. That has landed them middle of the pack in free throw attempts, as they get up 24.5 a game this season. Just 24 hours ago in Utah, Miami slowed the game down entirely and got to the charity stripe 42 times on the night. In the first half alone tonight, the Heat scraped their way to 21 attempts, as the three ball wasn’t dropping, leading to a lot of hard, contact attacks. With the way certain offensive stats have trended, this is a bump that would be huge for Miami if it’s sustained. The important thing to note is that it’s not one guy that is getting Miami these opportunities: most of the rotation is finding ways to get to that free throw line.
3. Does Norman Powell need a break?
The Miami Heat have dealt with enough injury news this season with the revolving door of guys in and out of the rotation. But a guy that has been pretty adamant about playing games as much as possible this year has been Norman Powell. He’s somebody who simply doesn’t like to miss games, plus he’s in a contract year which means it’s in his best interest to log consistent games played. With all of that said, he’s been dealing with a back injury recently that has left him on the injury report often prior to games. He struggled from deep again tonight, after going three-less in two straight games. Back injuries for a shooter is not an easy thing. From watching this game, it makes you wonder if he gets a break pretty soon.
