MIAMI — This was not what Giannis Antetokounmpo signed up for, standing as a one-man show while chaos reigned all around. Such was the dud of a Miami Heat opener that landed with a thud.
On a night that Antetokounmpo’s 35 points provided ample answers to his possibilities with his new team, the Heat found themselves moving on only with questions after Wednesday’s 131-106 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“We’ve got to be better,” Antetokounmpo said, with the focus shifting to Friday night’s game against the Detroit Pistons at Kaseya Center. “We have to be better. Our offense has got to be better. We’ve got to trust one another. Our trust cannot go away.”
For weeks, the talk within the team had been about cohesion, making the commitment to defend in lockstep, then relentlessly moving in lockstep and at speed on offense.
What had come off as intuitive during the preseason suddenly looked like a team playing with too much spontaneity on defense, and with not enough on offense.
In the pantheon of home openers in the franchise’s 39 seasons, arguably only the 108-66 opening loss to the Chicago Bulls in 2006 – one that came on the heels of the franchise’s 2006 championship – felt more rancid.
The effort was so skewed toward Giannis-or-bust that beyond his 35 points on 13-of-19 shooting, no other Heat player scored more than Bam Adebayo’s 15. That hardly was enough to offset the 45 by Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards and 21 of new Timberwolves teammate LaMelo Ball.
As could be expected, Erik Spoelstra started with the defense when it came to the clean up.
“We’re going to have to step up our defense. We know that,” the Heat coach said. “It’s going to have to be all across the board, with efforts and disruptiveness and these effort plays. We’re capable of doing it. We’re just going to have to get a lot better at committing to it, all five guys on the floor.”
It was an opener filled with telling numbers, including being outscored 20-6 on second-chance points, with the Timberwolves beating the Heat 17-4 on the offensive glass and 52-34 overall on the glass. Then there were the 19 Heat turnovers that led to 31 Minnesota points, with the Heat also outscored 63-24 on 3-pointers.
“The plays in the margins, we’re also going to have to get better at that,” Spoelstra said. “Forcing more turnovers, taking care of the basketball. They basically won all those departments. We outshot them (.481 to .469) and we got beat by 30. They dominated the turnovers, dominated the offensive glass, and dominated the three-point line.”
For his part, Antetokounmpo said all he accomplished on offense wasn’t enough, even though his 35 points were the most by a Heat player in his debut with the team, eclipsing the 31 scored by LeBron James in 2010. The 35 points also were second only in franchise history to the franchise opening-night record of 37 by James in 2011.
“Our effort has got to be way better. It starts with me,” Antetokounmpo said. “Our effort has got to be better. My effort has got to be better. Our effort was not as good as in the past. They scored 130 points in our house. I have to be better. It starts with me. I’ve got to set the tone.”
Spoelstra acknowledged there were times he didn’t know what he was looking at, as his players kept turning to him for direction.
“They were also doing things that were uncharacteristic — walking the ball up, waiting for play calls, playing on one side of the floor,” he said.
“We’ve been developing a style of play that we have to trust. Whether that would have been good enough or not, it’s tough to evaluate. We didn’t get to it.”
There was so much left to lament that it had the Heat back at practice Thursday at Kaseya Center, despite the session coming in the middle of a stretch of three games in four nights, with the Heat playing their road opener on Saturday night against the Charlotte Hornets.
“We have to be better,” Antetokounmpo said. “We have to play better. And hopefully now on Friday we can respond.”
From the moment Wednesday’s final horn sounded, Antetokounmpo knew major film study had to follow.
“Our spacing has to be better. Our offense was very, very stagnant. We did not look as fluid as the preseason,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t give you an answer why that is.”
So still searching for a first win, while also moving on to, seemingly, soul searching for a critical missing element.
“Trust,” Antetokounmpo identified. “We just got to trust one another. We weren’t ourselves. I think everybody knows it. ”
With the next opportunity coming Friday, this time with the challenge of Cade Cunningham and the team that finished last season with the best record in the Eastern Conference.
“None of us like to be humbled like that,” Spoelstra said. “It starts with the individual mentality and collective mentality to do tough things.”