From Heroes to Zeros in 48 minutes

We lost a game! Let’s all blame Duncan!!

God, Heat fans are an over-reactive bunch aren’t they?!

On a night where the Miami Heat had planned to celebrate the release of their superbly individual Miami Mashup jersey collection, a celebration it was not. The Miami Heat lost their second game of the season last night in a poor showing against the Boston Celtics, but from the ensuing meltdown on Heat twitter, you would think that the Heat are 0-8 through the first two weeks, instead of an Eastern Conference second best 6-2.

I suppose it’s naïve of me to be surprised at the response from a notoriously fickle fan base. The Heat win a game, and they’re better than Jordan’s Bulls. They lose a game, and its more balls than Bulls.

Within the space of 48 minutes, a group of nine guys can go from completely untouchable cornerstone franchise players, to a group of future second round picks (although if you’re OKC, you might quite like that idea).

Don’t get me wrong, Miami were especially poor last night and never really got going at all. The defensive intensity, pace pushing, and efficient ball movement we’ve seen thus far were all non-existent. The Celtics were just better than the Heat in all departments that night and it’s a frustrating one to take for the Heat.

Frustrating, but needed, perhaps. This Miami team have started the season incredibly well. They have – for the most part – scored at a high clip and their defense remains one of the best in the Association. It was perhaps necessary then, for the Heat to be on the end of a bit of a humbling. The kind they’ve dished out on numerous occasions so far. You can guarantee that Coach Spo will make sure the squad come out fighting against Utah on Saturday after it seemed they were playing with passivity and complacency that is so often a cancer to good teams. The Miami Heat culture (yes, it’s a real thing Raptors fans…) has shone brightly this season with the additions made in the offseason, and led Bam Adebayo to affectionately refer to the Heat locker room as ‘The Kennel’ thanks to the ‘dogs’ that now fill out the roster. Thursday evening against Boston was less kennel, and more dog grooming salon.

But the overriding negativity from some of the Miami Heat fanbase is unjust. The thing that Miami excels in – defending – is sustainable across the course of a season. This is important. If the Heat were shooting 70% from 3 across the first 8 games for example, and then dropped a clanger, you could understand the pessimism as shooting 70% from 3 is far from sustainable. But having a league-leading defense that does not rely on just one anchor, is. Barring any catastrophic injuries or events, you can expect Miami to be in the upper echelons in terms of defensive ratings come April. Despite the blowout to the Celtics, the Heat still have the second best defensive rating in the league, and that is without former All-Defensive First Teamer and Steals Leader, Victor Oladipo. Getting a healthy Oladipo back in the Heat rotation off the bench will add more firepower to the Heat’s already impactful bench unit.

Seeing Kyle Lowry hobble to the locker room last night will fill Heat fans with angst while we await any sort of update on his ankle. In the event of a Lowry injury, for however long, we should expect to see more of Gabe Vincent in the starting five with Tyler Herro staying in his bench role. It’ll be important for the Heat to maintain their defensive aggressiveness and pace without Lowry, something they didn’t manage to do in his only missed game so far, the overtime loss at Indiana. I’ll try not to talk too much about how great Kyle is because I don’t want to wake up tomorrow with an angry Canadian mob at my door exclaiming how he was always great and the culture doesn’t exist. We love him! Let us enjoy him, and move on, OK?!

Anyway, Kyle has made a massive difference to this team and one poor performance along the way won’t derail the Heat from their course. It’s an 82 game season which will include wins and losses, and our ability as fans to not get too high or too low will have an impact on our blood pressure for the next 9 months or so.

The most important game is always the next one, and how the Heat respond against a very good Utah squad will show what sort of business the Heat really mean this year, with QB1 or without him.