The Miami Heat made a bad start to the 2024-25 season, losing 116-97 against the Orlando Magic in a one-sided contest. The organization has shown a lot of trust in this roster, not making any significant changes over the summer. This kind of performance will worry the fans though.
Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, the Heat’s two superstars, combined for 12 points on the night. Nobody managed more than 20
The Heat left a lot to be desired on the defensive end of the floor as well, not doing things which should be bread and butter for this group of players.
Head coach Erik Spoelstra was pretty blunt in his assessment of the performance while speaking to the media after the game against the Magic. He said: “The activity level wasn’t there.
“You don’t need stats to see it, like you can feel it when we’re active. It might not lead to steals, but, yeah, what we’ve felt in the last two, three weeks, we didn’t feel that tonight.”
The Heat had shown a ton of promise in preseason and it felt like this team was ready to exceed expectations once again. The performance in their season-opener was not up to scratch though.
The Heat did well to keep it close in the first half and were just four points down going into the break.
The Magic simply blew them away after the break though, going on a 12-0 run to start of the third quarter and the Heat never really recovered from that.
They did manage to outscore the Magic in the fourth quarter but by then, it was a little too late to get anything out of the game or even make it close.There has been so much talk about ‘Heat Culture’ over the years. Something that is not quantifiable but has allowed the organization to outperform expectations on a consistent basis. That was the key ingredient missing in the season opener against the Magic.
