{"id":94724,"date":"2025-12-24T11:21:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T11:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/94724\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T11:21:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T11:21:19","slug":"are-the-miami-heat-doomed-to-another-nba-play-in-fate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/94724\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the Miami Heat doomed to another NBA play-in fate?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Q: So play-in again? \u2013 Ron.<\/p>\n<p>A: It\u2019s beginning to certainly feel that way. Look, the Pistons and Knicks aren\u2019t going anywhere at the top. The Celtics and 76ers have shown resilience. And the Cavaliers and Magic have their depth of talent. So that, alone, could preclude anything other than the play-in round for a fourth consecutive season. As it is, the Heat exited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/2025\/12\/23\/misery-continues-for-heat-falling-for-eighth-time-in-nine-games-this-time-112-91-to-raptors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tuesday night\u2019s loss<\/a> a half-game out of 10th place, the final play-in spot, the spot where they finished last season.<\/p>\n<p>Q: Hi Ira, with those first 21 games seemingly a mirage, my question is this: Can a team who\u2019s max contract talent is someone who is more or less a \u201cnice player\u201d ever find a path beyond mediocrity? \u2013 Ray, Deerfield Beach.<\/p>\n<p>A: They have before, so they certainly can again. But it has to be the right players <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/2025\/12\/23\/windermans-view-time-for-heat-to-get-into-playbook-as-they-remain-at-a-loss\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in the right system<\/a>. And at this stage, it\u2019s not so certain the Heat have either to properly augment Bam Adebayo. But also to be fair, this is not a system on offense that plays to Bam\u2019s strengths. At this stage, a reassessment is needed across the board, which certainly is not the easiest path in the midst of a season. It\u2019s not just that something is off; many things are off. So, yes, Bam needs to be better. But so does Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell and a host of Heat others. They reveled in the early success, now they have to show the same motivation to climb out of whatever this is.<\/p>\n<p>Q: Ira, remember our bench? \u2013 Andy.<\/p>\n<p>A: A bench is only truly a \u201csecond unit\u201d when the roster is intact. It is hard to be that when Tyler Herro, Pelle Larsson and Nikola Jovic are out. Herro\u2019s scoring clearly is needed. Larsson\u2019s energy clearly is needed. And there could yet again be something to be said about Jovic\u2019s creativity. This was never a team with a huge margin for error, no matter what the early-season record said. This team needs to get whole and healthy. In a hurry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q: So play-in again? \u2013 Ron. A: It\u2019s beginning to certainly feel that way. Look, the Pistons and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17325,114,123,125,2490,16151,124,2295,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-94724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-ask-ira","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miami-heat-blog","14":"tag-miami-news","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}