Miami Heat Scramble to 103-102 Win in Nail-biter Home Opener

The stars were out for the Miami Heat home opener last night against the Detroit Pistons. As Sylvester Stallone and Luis Arraez were soon to find out, the Heat were about to put on a show. “Hopefully, this isn’t the start of another season where we’re going to be playing a clutch game every night,” Tyler Herro said after the game. “But it is fun.”

Too Comfortable

The Heat got a good win last night. However, this team still shows lots of room for improvement. Cade Cunningham almost single-handedly took Miami’s lead right out from under them in the span of almost three minutes. Detroit put together a 14-0 run to get within 94-89, the closest the Pistons had been to any lead since the second quarter.

Cunningham seemed to be at the end of every run from Detroit, shooting 8 of 11 for 18 points in the first two quarters. He finished with 30 points and 9 assists. Tyler Herro scored 16 points, Duncan Robinson added 15, Kevin Love had 13 points and 10 rebounds, Bam Adebayo scored 22 points and Jimmy Butler finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds.

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Detroit shot 0-4 to finish out a game that included a missed 30-footer from Cunningham. However, before this, the Heat let a 19-point lead slip from their fingers in a more than poor defensive showing. Although balanced contributions from everyone on this squad is a big reason for Miami’s continued success, strong finishing ability needs to be this team’s specialty if they are going to continue to cultivate the kind of team culture that beat the Boston Celtics in the playoffs.

Miami Heat Mentality

Even though the game itself ended in a sloppy fashion, the Miami Heat team morale seemed pretty high after the W.

“A win is a win, as Spo would tell you, as I would tell you, as anybody in that locker room would tell you,” Butler said.

Jimmy knows his coach well, because shortly after the coach mirrored this sentiment. “I loved it,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I loved the energy. A lot of good things.”

Overall, this team shows a lot of promise and should be as fun to watch this year as they were last year. New rookie pickups should add to this enthusiasm.