Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra looks on from the sideline during the third quarter against the Charlotte Hornets at Spectrum Center.
Brian Westerholt
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The Miami Heat’s Giannis Antetokounmpo era is off to a historically bad start.
After Saturday night’s 115-110 loss to the Charlotte Hornets at Spectrum Center, the Heat is 0-3 to start a season for the first time since the 2007-08 schedule. Miami dropped its first five games of the 2007-08 season and finished with a dismal 15-67 record before taking Michael Beasley with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2008 draft.
In fact, this is just the fifth time in franchise history that the Heat has started a season with an 0-3 record. Miami has qualified for the playoffs after beginning 0-3 just once before, when it made it to the second round of the 2004 playoffs during Dwyane Wade’s rookie season.
“We just got to keep fighting, keep pushing,” Heat starting guard Davion Mitchell said following Saturday’s loss in Charlotte. “It’s a new team, we’re kind of learning each other’s personalities, learning each other’s games still. I mean, this is Game 3. We’re not in panic mode. We’re going to figure it out.”
But the new-look Heat has a lot to figure out, as it entered Sunday with the NBA’s 25th-ranked offensive rating and 28th-ranked defensive rating for the season.
“It’s early in the season, it’s October,” Heat veteran center Bobby Portis Jr. said. “We’re still getting to know each other. When you put a team together, all the pieces have to come together. And it’s obviously not the start that we wanted, but there’s so much good that we can take from it.”
Just about anything good that the Heat can take away from Saturday’s defeat came in the fourth quarter. With a lineup of Mitchell, Tim Hardaway Jr., Pelle Larsson, Portis and Bam Adebayo, Miami opened the fourth quarter on a 25-4 run to erase a 21-point deficit and tie the game at 100 with 5:42 to play before Charlotte hung on for the victory.
“That was inspiring, and ultimately what I told our team right now is we need inspiration,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the next opportunity for Miami to get its first win of the season coming on Monday against the Dallas Mavericks at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m., WPLG Local 10 and NBA TV). “Those five guys inspired our team for 10 minutes of the game, and we need a lot more inspiration throughout the course of 48 minutes. It’s a powerful thing when you can inspire your teammate to make an extraordinary effort, and we will. We’ll get there.”
To get there, the Heat needs to get its starting lineup to produce positive results.
The Heat’s starting group of Mitchell, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Antetokounmpo and Adebayo has been outscored by an eye-opening 47.1 points per 100 possessions in 31 minutes together through the first three games of the season. Among the eight lineups around the NBA that entered Sunday with at least 30 minutes played together this season, this Heat starting unit has the worst net rating.
The Heat also needs to find a way to win in the margins, as it has been outscored 165-108 from three-point range and 58-37 in second-chance points through the first three games of the season.
The Heat has even struggled with Antetokounmpo on the court so far. Miami has been outscored by 28.6 points per 100 possessions in the 88 minutes that Antetokounmpo has played this season.
“I think this is a great opportunity. We’re getting to know each other now,” Spoelstra said amid the Heat’s rough start to the season. “Everything was great in September, barbecues and all this stuff. You get to know each other for real when you feel a little bit of adversity, how all of us respond.”
There’s still a long season ahead, but history says the Heat faces an uphill battle in accomplishing its ultimate goal. The 1990-91 Chicago Bulls are the only team in NBA history to begin 0-3 and win a championship that same season.
“I think the motto of our group is pain, and we’re going through pain,” Mitchell said. “And we love that because you learn so much from it. Even the preseason, we were all up and up. And winning games, obviously, it’s the preseason. And then now we’re losing games, and now we learn from each other. Learning from mistakes is always just like a learning curve, so that’s the positive.”
With 79 games left to play this regular season, all the Heat can do is push forward.
“It’s every other day from here on out, for real,” Portis said after Saturday’s loss in Charlotte. “So just getting our rest tomorrow, coming back Monday, being better than we were today, and then just keep trending. This is my 12th year at this, so you never get too high or too low throughout the NBA season. You stay even-keeled, and you just do your routine every day. Eventually, it’ll come together, and we’ll peak at the right time.”
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Anthony Chiang covers the Miami Heat for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and was born and raised in Miami.