Either way, we weren’t going to get any answers.
One game, win or lose, isn’t going to tell you how many games a team is going to win or what seed they are going to be in the playoffs. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing a lottery team, the defending champions or, in the case of the Washington Wizards, a playoff team depleted by injuries. There’s only so much you can learn from one game.
So let’s learn something from one possession instead.
The HEAT’s opening night victory was as good a start as could be expected. Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade did Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade things, steadying the offense and getting the shots we’re used to them getting. All three of the point guards – perhaps we should refer to them as small guards given that Mario Chalmers is a part-time shooting guard for the moment – made an impact, with Norris Cole’s quick release jumper saving the offense on a number of occasions. The defense was strong up front with some breakdowns on the back end, which is normal for a team if that team is full of fresh faces. James Ennis wrote a review of ‘Interstellar’ as he hung in the air before dunking on Rasual Butler, which is normal for a rookie if that rookie has been listening to ‘Run the Jewels 2’ on repeat.
Most important, for now, is that the ball moved.
Miami has plenty of talent, but they can’t out-talent math. If this offense is going to have the efficiency to put it among the ten best in the league, it’s going to need the sort of ball movement which impacts and manipulates the defense. It’s going to need to have games where that movement generates 26 uncontested threes and seven hockey assists, according to SportVU tracking, as it did last night. It’s going to need possessions like this…
That is hardly a perfect sequence, true. The passes are a little off target. The movement isn’t perfectly coordinated. The final shot, while a corner three, isn’t the most open look Shawne Williams is ever going to see. If a symphony is the desired end-product, then the flutists are still clearing their throats.
But the ball, and everyone else, is moving. Two quick handoffs, a drive with a shooter stationed in the opposite corner, spray pass, skip pass, another drive, paint touch, rotating defense, pass pass corner three. Scorers are going to have plenty of opportunities to score this year, but possessions like this are going to be Miami’s lifeblood. Passing, driving, cutting and spacing all working in tandem for something above average.
There’s a there there, and with every game and every possession like the one above we’ll get a clearer idea of what that is.
So while enough jumpers fell for that positive first-game result, you can see the team building its process – didn’t think we were done with that word, did you – while things are sorted out. There are still so many questions to answer and mysteries to solve, but putting together the clues is just as fun as seeing the rubber mask pulled off ‘The Creeper’ at the end of the show.