| ‘Home-Heavy Schedule’ Brings Question Marks Authored by Brian Reynolds - November 19, 2009 - 6:52 pm
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However, after dropping their last two games (Oklahoma City and Atlanta), it’s hard to get a solid grasp on how good Erik Spoelstra’s team really is.
The reason for this is simple: One night they will appear as an Eastern Conference power (as they did against the Suns and Nuggets), and the next they will need a Dwyane Wade buzzer-beater to survive against the winless New Jersey Nets.
At 7-4, one would say that it’s been a pretty good start to the ’09-10 season for the Heat. However, after looking at the schedule, you will notice that Coach Spoelstra’s team opened the season by playing eight of their first 10 games at American Airlines Arena.
This means one thing; Miami has not been tested yet (hence the reason it’s hard to figure out how good they really are).
Coach Spoelstra addressed the topic of the early “home-heavy schedule” after his team fell 105-90 to the division-rival Hawks on Wednesday night.
“[We need to] develop some real toughness and resolve on the road,” said Spoelstra. “We need to make sure we play together. We are capable of more than this. We are much better than we have played the last two nights. We know that. We need to get back to our identity, which is defending and making things tough for other teams.”
In Spoelstra’s defense, it’s pretty hard to be competitive against a good team on the road when you are forced to play Joel Anthony alongside Shavlik Randolph, which he did for much of the game. The team was without Udonis Haslem who was nursing a shoulder injury. Anthony and Randolph played a combined 33 minutes, going 2 of 6 from the field while grabbing four rebounds.
Dwyane Wade, who has struggled – by his standards – the last two nights sort of expected this.
“We’re still growing,” Wade said. “I said it when we were 6-1. We are going to be tested when we start playing better teams. We’re going to have growing pains. It’s part of the NBA schedule. We just need to bounce back against Toronto on Friday.”
Miami will finish out November with games at Toronto, vs. New Orleans, at Orlando, vs. Washington, and vs. Boston. However, I think we will finally get a good idea of Miami’s place in the Eastern Conference when they travel to play Portland, Denver, L.A. Lakers, and Sacramento to begin December.
Every good team wins at home, but it’s how you play on the road that shows your team’s true character. And so far, with Miami only traveling to New York, Indiana and Atlanta, we really haven’t seen the team respond to adversity in a tough environment. [Note: I would normally count Atlanta, but with Anthony and Randolph playing huge minutes, I refuse to do so]
We do know one thing about Miami. They have one of the game’s elite players and will always be competitive if not just for that single reason. Wade is good enough to make this team playoff bound by himself.
But, are they anything more than just a playoff team in the East? Our answer will come when they are tested away from South Beach.
--Brian Reynolds is a contributing writer for RealGM and a graduate of Emory University. He can be reached at Brian.Matthew.Reynolds@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter for most every Hawks home game at BReynolds404. |
