Good at Being Bad

Not that anyone is counting, but after the Heat’s third loss to open this season – a jumbled, too-little-too-late two-point loss to the Charlotte Bobcats – some wisenheimer on the Sun-Sentinel’s Heat blog reminded beat writer Ira Winderman that, counting back to last season, the four-game playoff sweep to Chicago, and that winless preseason, the Heat had lost 16 in a row.

Granted, that’s something of a B.S. figure (we are talking preseason), but it does raise a couple of possibilities, neither of which is reassuring to Heat fans. The first is that the Miami Heat is a no longer a good NBA team. The second is that the Heat may be a good team, but plays like a bad one, which is a lot like the first option.

And if there’s a third? It’s that the Heat is afflicted by the Miami-wide sports malaise that shows little sign of lifting. The Panthers are passable, but the Marlins melted down, the Hurricanes are helpless, and the Dolphins are dreadful. One possible cure is playing a team from Atlanta, another beleaguered sports city. The Joe Johnson-led Hawks are young enough that they’ll probably improve over the course of the year, so the best time to play them may be before they master such basketball nuances as “scoring” and “defending.” See if the Heat can do an impression of any team from Boston at the American Airlines Arena (601 Biscayne Blvd, Miami) on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets begin at $10. Call 786-777-4667, or visit www.heat.com.
Wed., Nov. 21, 7:30 p.m., 2007