Giannis Antetokounmpo didn’t hide his frustration after another rough defensive night for the Miami Heat, and he made it clear the standard has to be higher.
The Heat were built to lean on defense, but that strength has not shown up through the first seven games. After allowing 138 points to the Los Angeles Lakers, Miami now owns the 27th-worst defensive rating in the league. For a team that was supposed to make its name on that end, the results have been hard to explain.
Giannis put the burden on the group to stop drifting through games and start setting the tone.
“Somebody has to set the tone and others got to follow. Right now we just have glimpses of it.
It starts from me, from Bam, from Andrew and Davion. The starting group, it’s almost like we’re going through the motions.
We just have to come together. We cannot go the other way.”
He wasn’t done there.
“We’re not playing hard enough. We’ve got to play harder. We’ve got to have some pride."
Those comments land with extra weight because the Heat entered the season with plenty of pressure on them to deliver. Giannis has been strong offensively, but he hasn’t been getting enough on the defensive end. The same goes for the rest of the roster, and the collective effort has left Miami among the league’s worst defensive teams.
That’s what makes this start so jarring. The offense was always expected to take time, especially with the fit of Giannis and Bam Adebayo still needing to settle in. The depth also wasn’t viewed as a strength compared with some of the other contenders in the Eastern Conference.
But defense was supposed to be the safety net. Instead, it’s been a problem. And with the Heat sitting at 2-5, it’s already a major reason the season has started this way.
The issue isn’t being ignored inside the locker room. Bam and Erik Spoelstra also addressed the concerns after the game, which only underscores how obvious the problem has become.
Now the question is how Miami actually fixes it. Is this about scheme?
Is it about effort? The answer is in the locker room, and the Heat are the ones scrambling to find it.
There’s still time to straighten things out, but not much. The grace period won’t last forever, and Giannis is already sounding like a player running out of patience with the growing pains.
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