The following transcript is an excerpt from the Open Floor podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Michael Pina: So after a nightmarish four-game slide that included losses against the Sixers without James Harden and Joel Embiid, the Warriors without Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, the Knicks without Julius Randle, and the Nets with everybody—I was at that game, it was fun, the Nets at one point led by 37 points. So on a scale of 1 to 10 right now Rohan, just how concerning is this to you with Miami?
It’s basically like a four-way tie between the Celtics, the Bucks, the Sixers and the Heat. We don’t know how things are going to shake out. But the Heat schedule upcoming is not easy. After Sacramento, they play Boston—Rob Williams-less Boston—on Wednesday, and then things get a little tougher from there or as tough from there. So just what’s the level of concern right now for Miami in your opinion?
Rohan Nadkarni: I mean, the concern has to be a 10. I'm not worried about the fight.
Michael Pina: O.K.!
Rohan Nadkarni: As far as the fight goes, that’s kind of the style they’ve cultivated there. I remember Duncan Robinson telling me, that’s what Jimmy Butler is like, literally from his first practice in Miami and they made it to the Finals with him being that kind of person. So I’m not really worried about that.
I thought this was a great regular season team, but I’m not high on them for their playoff chances. I wrote about this, I ranked them behind Milwaukee, Boston, Philly and Brooklyn for their title chances because I didn’t have faith in what they could do in the half court. And we saw it in that Philly game, especially late. Philly, without Harden or Embiid, attacked Tyler Herro. Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris were just crushing Herro down the stretch. And on the other end of the floor the Heat didn’t know what they wanted to do. They were like, do we want to attack with Jimmy on switches? Do we want Tyler to run pick-and-rolls? Do we want Kyle Lowry to run pick-and-rolls?
To me, the concern’s a 10 because they have no idea what they want to do in close games. They don’t have a closing lineup. The Herro-Butler-Lowry-Tucker-Adebayo group … I haven’t looked up the lineup stats in a few days, but it’s still under 100 minutes for the season. There’s no reason that group shouldn’t have played more by now, even with the injuries they’ve had. They’ve been available in enough games and for some reason that lineup doesn’t get a ton of use. They don’t know what plays they want to run down the stretch. I feel like every other team in the East knows what they want to do in the last few minutes of a close game. The Heat still have no idea.
And now you add on top of that, their defense is sliding. Teams are doing a good job of getting rid of Bam Adebayo down the stretch ’cause they know the Heat want to switch. And that to an extent, it’s kind of mitigating what Bam wants to do. They’re just targeting, they always kind of have a weak defender on the floor, whether it’s Duncan Robinson or Tyler Herro, and they need those guys because then their half-court offense doesn’t work. And the idea was bringing in someone like Kyle Lowry, you’d have four defenders on the floor. You can cover for that fifth guy. I’m not sure if that’s been the case. I think the concern’s at 10, I don’t know how you can say it’s anything less than that.
