Basketball people argue all the time what the NBA of November or December means. Is anything of lasting importance? Does the season unofficially start on Christmas Day?
The Heat are 19-13. They’re fourth in the East. Their two best players, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, each have played about half the season.
They entered Tuesday’s win against Indiana with the fewest home games and second-most road games in the league. They rank in the Top 10 offensively and defensively.
“There’s nobody in the East I could say is any better than they are,’’ Stan Van Gundy said Wednesday morning.
There’s the importance of these first two months. This is where this unbalanced schedule, this unhealthy team and this blue-ribbon organization stand at the unofficial start of the season. They’ve shown how far this season can go if you squint your eyes and look to the spring.
Van Gundy saw the Heat play without three starters Tuesday night and dismantle Indiana 125-96 in his latest role as a TNT broadcaster. It was a tilted game from the start, with coach Erik Spoelstra starting with a defensive zone and smartly starting 6-5 Max Strus to bring Indiana’s 6-11 Domantas Sabonis outside on offense.
Strus and Gabe Vincent are the new Tyler Johnson and Duncan Robinson, the latest talents picked off the scrap heap to polish into valuable sidekicks to the stars.
“Everybody talks about their culture,’’ Van Gundy said. “It’s true. But a lot of people get it all wrong, as if they’re taking anybody and turning them into hard-working, tough players. That’s not it at all.
“Bill Belichick’s line is, ‘If you want a smart, tough team then go get smart, tough players because you’re not going to change them into that.’ The Heat have a lot of undrafted guys through the years who were there for the taking.
“They know what they’re looking for. They do a great job, No. 1, of finding guys and of seeing what they can become.”
Van Gundy says it’s always been that way with Pat Riley’s Heat, the consistency and vision of Heat lifers like Spoelstra and Adam Simon running through it to bring such names. Udonis Haslem and Eddie House back in the day.
“In this latest group, they’ve valued guys who can shoot the ball,’’ he said. “Strus, Vincent, Duncan Robinson. Guys they knew would put in the work. Then, Erik and his staff have done a fabulous job developing players. They have a vision of what they can become.”
The vision of Robinson, he points out, just isn’t as a spot-up shooter. They’ve taught him to move.
“That opens up things for the rest of the team,’’ he said. “They keep him moving and can attack a defense They get slips to the rim, open areas to move the ball. They had that vision and put the work in to get there.”
At some point, the Heat will need their best team on the court, not just the stars of Butler and Adebayo, but the experienced muscle of P.J. Tucker and Markieff Morris. For now, they’ve won five of seven, including Tuesday where Indiana simply surrendered by the fourth quarter.
It was near the end of the telecast when there wasn’t anything less to say about the Heat’s demolition of Indiana, or what they’ve done this year, or how they got here, that Stan Van Gundy reached into the memory bank when a 3-point shot went astray.
“Pat Riley tells a story from his Lakers days,’’ he said in the TNT broadcast Tuesday night. “The ball came to Pat, he took the shot. Wilt Chamberlain came to him and asked what he was doing.
“He said, ‘Wilt, I was wide open.’ Wilt looked at him and said, ‘Pat, there’s a reason you were wide open.’ Everyone needs to know strengths and weaknesses. Play to your strengths.”
Van Gundy was chuckling now over the phone, saying, “I heard him tell that story that few times over the years.”
Here’s the point: The Heat keep playing to their strengths. It’s been an odd year for everyone. Milwaukee might have lost its big defender, Brook Lopez, for the year. Brooklyn never seems to be sure who’s in and who’s out.
As Christmas comes into view with its supposed unofficial start of the season, Van Gundy has it right about the Heat. No one in the East looks any better than them. It doesn’t make them anyone’s favorite pick. It just explains what November and December showed us.
