Shai Gilgeous-Alexander returned to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 27 after missing nine straight games with an abdominal injury, and his squad looks like the best in the league. Keep in mind they are still missing All-Star Jalen Williams, who has been out with a right hamstring strain since Feb. 11. The San Antonio Spurs closed most of the gap with them for the first seed, but the Thunder’s proven depth gets tons of credit for maintaining it. 

 

The Spurs beat them four times this season, giving them the tiebreaker, and whichever team gets the first seed will have an advantage because of the extra night at home in a seven-game series.

 

The Thunder went into Madison Square Garden on Wednesday and showed themselves a class above their hosts. The New York Knicks weren’t concerned with guarding the arc, and their visitors turned it into target practice in the first half. On the other end, the Knicks had trouble getting the looks they wanted.

 

The game got tighter due to a home resurgence in the third quarter, but the Thunder prevailed because of contributions from multiple members, including the key strip by Cason Wallace on Jalen Brunson to make the last shot much harder when it was inbounded after that. And still, the Knicks got two 3-pointers off to tie in the last six seconds and the last one by OG Anunoby was a good look. 

 

The champs don’t hurt themselves, averaging the lowest turnover percentage in the league. Yet they aren’t some unbeatable juggernaut since their biggest weakness is allowing too many 3-pointers. Still, their physicality inside the arc permits the lowest two-point field goal percentage (49.1). Additionally, while they are only 24th in transition frequency, they are tied with New York as the most efficient team when raising the pace, scoring 1.19 points per possession. 

 

All of that is nice, but most importantly, SGA is the real deal. His ability to get to his spots late, as he did against Anunoby for a pull-up trey as the game hung in the balance, is what separates him from other All-Stars and All-NBA players. It’s special how he takes over a quarter (27.7) of his shots at 10-16 feet, making 59.1 percent of them, and is an above-average scorer in the in-between area (3-10 feet), logging 49.7 percent. 

 

He can go off like Rambo against a defense, and is good enough to make the right reads when added pressure comes. SGA and the crew have championship confidence so they’ll never be rattled. 

 

They are looking to be the first team to repeat since the Golden State Warriors did in 2017 and 2018.   

 

The Cavaliers’ front office doesn’t lack boldness, but did they make the right move?

 

Darius Garland was a beloved player in Cleveland. They drafted him fifth in 2019, and he made two All-Star teams. Now he’s a Los Angeles Clipper at age 26, and James Harden is a Cav. 

 

There’s a lot Harden does offensively that still makes him a high-impact player at age 36. Two advantages he has over Garland are his size and strength, being four inches taller and significantly heavier. 

 

He’s rarely gotten the credit for being the guy who took the Kevin Durant-led Warriors further than anyone, yet one questions Harden’s basketball character. He’s got a rap sheet of playoff letdowns and he wanted to leave the resurgent Clippers for guaranteed money two years from now, as if he hasn’t made a fortune already.

 

Combining him with Donovan Mitchell gives the Cavs two real hubs of offense. The latter being the superior player also takes pressure off Harden, but the latter can’t be a turnover machine or have games shooting in the 30s to low 40 percent range in the playoffs. 

 

This year has turned out favorably because they got out of the mud and now the Cavs have a solid opportunity to get back to their first Finals since 2018. They won’t catch the Detroit Pistons for the first seed, but it remains to be seen how the latter lacking a second big-time shot creator will factor in to the playoffs, presuming they vanquish the eighth seed. 

 

After flaming out in round two last year, it’s all or nothing for the Cavs.

 

The Miami Heat’s difficult quest for the sixth seed:

 

The Miami Heat have six games left against the league’s worst teams, and they can’t afford to lose any of them if they want the sixth seed to avoid going through their fourth Play-In Tournament. They have to be on point because the Charlotte Hornets are on their tail, and are the superior team plus the Orlando Magic have the tiebreaker after beating them four times.

 

They’ll need to tighten up their 3-point defense in the final regular-season stretch since they give up the most open attempts. The Heat are not good enough to get by on the strength of their offense and must commit to being the nastier team in the trenches.  If they don’t, their top-four defensive rating is not as good as it sounds.

 

It helps that Bam Adebayo has picked up his play since mid-January, averaging 21.7 points and 10 rebounds on 45.2% shooting. He needs to finish the year like that while keeping up his high level of defense. On top of that, Tyler Herro and Jaime Jaquez Jr. can’t fail to deliver on nights the team needs their scoring and playmaking as this will affect the defense. The more efficient they are, opponents will have to play the Heat more in the half-court because the ball will need to be checked in.

 

The Heat have 20 games left but two remain between them and Hornets, both being in Charlotte 11 days apart. The latter has a 19-6 record since Jan. 10,  and the Heat’s best 25-game spurt was 14-11. The Heat are one game out of the sixth seed, but are separated by 1.5 games in the standings with the Hornets.

It was easy work for the Heat as they figured out the tanking, visiting Nets by the second quarter, and earning their 19th win at Kaseya Center. The offense scored 125.3 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 79th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass.

 

Danny Wolf gave the Heat fits in early, cutting, shooting and driving, yet the hosts finished the first period ahead by six thanks to Bam Adebayo carrying them with his rim pressure. 

 

Tyler Herro then took over for a stretch, piercing the lane thrice, plus Andrew Wiggins hit the fast lane in transition for two baskets, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. kept getting to the body and nailed two triples. 

 

The crew had a 15-point edge at intermission, having made a dent in transition and with second-chance opportunities. They subsequently were sloppy in the third quarter, committing avoidable turnovers and guarding in third gear, but the Nets could never get within striking distance, in part because Herro had a quick burst at the end of it. 

 

The fourth quarter was a formality as Simone Fontecchio got plenty of burn, making multiple 3-pointers and a few freebies. Adebayo stayed in the game for a bit to ensure the Nets wouldn’t make a comeback and checked out with fewer than four minutes left. 

 

The Heat won 124-98, and they had six double-figure scorers log between 11 and 23 points.

 

Takeaways: 

 

• Not much can be taken away from this victory, like when a fighter cruises to an easy win against a piece of meat. The Heat will play them again Thursday, giving them a chance to bolster their record, but the public will learn more in Friday’s matchup with the surging Charlotte Hornets, who have an 18-6 record since Jan. 10.

 

• Adebayo being in kill-mode early set the mood for the team, yet it took the defense a bit longer to catch up despite their blocks and steals. He even had five steals and a denial in the first half. Things would be different for the Heat this season if he were that player full-time, and maybe he can be. 

 

• The big front court featuring Adebayo and Kel’el Ware got some more time in the first half and in the fourth, yet it will take more than short stretches against a basement team for coach Erik Spoelstra to trust the lineup. They still need some fine-tuning, working with the other three to guard, but the lineups’ intensity on the glass is an edge the Heat needs. And of course, all of their minutes didn’t come together, but they combined for 11 steals. 

 

• Fouling on jump shooters is a league-wide problem, but it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing and inexcusable for the Heat to keep making them if they are serious about doing things this season. It happened thrice in the second quarter, including two behind the arc. The team that bites on fewer fakes, and doesn’t commit cheap fouls and unnecessarily sags off the 3-point line can easily save an extra 10 points per game.    

 

• Herro has never been scared to talk but this was his second straight game getting a technical foul. On Feb. 28, he had words with Kevin Durant, and on Tuesday it was with Noah Clowney, presumably after he stepped over Pelle Larsson after a blocking foul was called.

It only took the Heat four days after their return from the All-Star break to remind everyone how unserious they are. Losing to the Bucks without their indecisive Greek megastar is one of their worst losses of the year, and there’s a new candidate for those every few weeks, it seems. On top of that, no matter how close they get to grasping the sixth seed, it slips through their fingers, like most recently on Thursday.

 

Pat Riley had a distraction from this team in his trip to Los Angeles, in which he was honored for past glory, but it ended just in time for him to witness the Milwaukee meltdown, too. 

 

The players sang the same tune in the locker room and presser about not getting stops. Their Tuesday performance highlights how much they’ve seen better days, in the 20-year anniversary of their first championship.

 

Coach Erik Spoelstra has preached the same platitude about pressure being a privilege, and now he sounds like a cleric reciting sermons on the street corner that no one is listening to. He could turn to veterans like Shane Battier, Udonis Haslem and Andre Iguodala in the past to inject the rotation with a different dynamic, but aside from Tyler Herro, who has glaring defensive shortcomings, there’s not much else. 

 

One wonders what the decision-makers hope to prove this season, as a swift first-round exit likely awaits them if they get that far. It should sting them twice that the star they covet knows how they’ll struggle with what he’s got already. Keep in mind that it was in Milwaukee’s best interest to lose that game to improve their lottery chances. 

 

Then they blew their second-half comeback on Thursday in Philly against the 76ers because they were clueless on how to guard the arc and got beat in the open court 27-22. Spoelstra called it getting beat at their own game, yet interestingly, the Heat are not good at playing fast; they do it more than other teams to break down opponents’ legs (first in frequency), yet are 29th in points per possession (1.07).

 

Thursday’s loss was a double whammy because they fell a game further away from the sixth seed (2.5), held by Philadelphia.

 

It seems inevitable that the Heat will be in their fourth consecutive Play-In Tournament. So the NBA should change its name to the Miami Heat Invitational. Unfortunately for them, they’ll have no vintage Jimmy Butler to bail them out.

 

The Heat’s brief two-game road trip started with a loss in Milwaukee against the Bucks. They failed to convert easy baskets, and they let Ryan Rollins turn into vintage Ray Allen.

 

The Heat got out in transition early and had the edge on the glass, but they had five turnovers, and the Bucks led by one at the end of the first quarter thanks to superior long and mid-range shooting, much of it coming from Ryan Rollins and Kyle Kuzma. 

 

The hosts kept raining 3-pointers in the second quarter, but the Heat countered with four straight of their own, forcing coach Doc Rivers to call a stoppage. The visitors closed out the half on a 10-13 run and were down five, plus they had started losing their intensity to hunt for loose balls and soiled their offense with multiple late turnovers. 

 

They subsequently had an early flurry in the first few minutes of the third quarter to take the lead, but the Bucks snatched it back half as fast with a pair of shots in the lane and two 3-pointers. The Heat eventually went into the fourth ahead by four points following their success getting back to their transition attack, plus they made 10 shots in the paint. 

 

The team followed up going cold, and Norman Powell did his best to bail them out of a tight fourth quarter by nailing a trifecta and five free throws, yet they let go of the rope late when Andrew Wiggins missed two late freebies. 

 

The Heat were outscored by 15 in the fourth quarter and lost 128-117.

 

They will not practice on Wednesday.

 

Takeaways:

 

• This was the Heat’s second confrontation of the year with the Bucks, who were without Giannis Antetokounmpo for his 12th straight game. The Heat has the bad habit of playing down to the level of the competition, and they struggled to guard.  One particular mistake they keep making is reckless closeouts to the arc. 

 

• Kevin Porter Jr. limped to the locker room fewer than four minutes into the game after hurting his ankle, and then came back scoring 32 points. He finessed his way into the lane for eight baskets, but none were bigger than his corner jumper while absorbing the contact from Davion Mitchell to take the lead in crunch time; then he finished on a quick pick-and-roll set to put them up four. Rollins’ two late unguarded jumpers closed the deal. 

 

• The Heat had big-time contributions from Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins and Kel’el Ware in the third quarter, yet they combined for only 25% shooting in the fourth. Powell was the team’s best player, scoring 26 points, yet he had zero assists and six turnovers. On top of that, the team’s offense was in the gutter, scoring 111.4 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 39th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. The corner shot is the easiest in the NBA, and the Heat missed all nine attempts there.

 

• Using Tyler Herro and Powell together, especially late, is not a good idea because they are not good enough defenders.