The Heat Assist Podcast

In today’s episode, the crew analyzes the Heat’s performance against the Portland Trailblazers and the Golden State Warriors. In particular, we pick apart the Heat’s defense, as a common trend in the opponent’s strategy is to single out and attack Duncan Robinson. Both Trevor Ariza and Carmelo Anthony took advantage of the match up against Robinson and put up significant numbers against Miami. We discuss how the Heat are not particularly equipped to provide elite defense in either the perimeter or the paint, and thus, have come to rely on zone defense, which has not been working well. Jae Crowder and Andre Iguodala got to play for the very first time for the Heat. Jae Crowder has taken advantage of his new opportunity with the Heat by logging in heavy minutes and contributing not only defensively, but on the offensive end as well by shooting extremely efficiently from the 3-point line.

Against the Golden State Warriors the Heat played much better as Jimmy Butler returned to the line-up. Carson brings an interesting observation about the Heat’s weak third quarter performance. Also, Kendrick Nunn shooting woes continues, as he is unable to provide efficient scoring despite putting up a significant portion of the Heat’s shots. We discuss whether or not he might still be affected by the achilles injury that he sustained earlier in January. We also briefly touch on some NBA headlines that have been circling about, including Embiid's cryptic twitter conversation with Jimmy Butler (maybe even hinting a possible reunion in Miami) and Jaxson Hayes rant for not making the Rising Stars Challenge.

Finally, we select our picks to win in the All-Star competitions. Heat fans should be extremely excited for this year’s All-Star as every competition has at least one Heat player selected to participate. Do our Heat representatives have a chance to win against some of the bigger names in league? Tune in to find out what the crew thinks of our chances.