Run it Back! NBA Week in Review, 2025-26 Miami Heat - Week 16

Run It Back Week 16 -- Miami Heat === [00:00:00] Week 16 of the 20 25 26 NB. A season is over, which means it's time to run it back. This is run it back NBA Weekend Review Heat edition. I'm Eric Labrador at thePeachBasket.net covering the Miami Heat. This is the show where I recapped the week that was in the NBA. And then highlight the Marqui matchup for the week to come for the Miami Heat. Now, on a personal note, Giannis didn't come to Miami, and you can note the discouragement in my voice because. It looked like if Giannis was stringing along the Milwaukee Bucks with his indirect talk, it was that he [00:01:00] was getting hot and heavy with the heat. He was spotted in the Miami International Airport. So much Twitter Buzz was saying that. Miami was one of the top teams that Giannis wanted to go to. Miami doesn't have a state tax. Miami's putting together a good, package of players for Giannis and then the buck. Lowered the boom on trade day saying that they weren't gonna do it. I think that Giannis has not forgotten. And going over why wouldn't he want to come? Why wouldn't he want to be part of the heat that he knows they're legit? I think he still is sore about. Losing to the heat all those years, I think he's still sore. He has something where he remembers getting upset by the heat so many years, 2021 doesn't count. Compared to the times. [00:02:00] That that he just defended the hell outta him. And I think it's just like he still has some, he still has some feelings about it, but we move on. So we want to move to our review of the week. Miami went one and two with the losses to the hawks and the Celtics. They beat the bulls and they won the season series. And we don't have to play the Bulls anymore because they, because of the air conditioning issue in one game, they played three games in a row. Whew. And with those losses, you can see where Miami dropped in our power rankings from five to seven. You can read more about how we get to these rankings and see the entire list@thepeachbasket.net. The heat didn't play well against Atlanta, but they didn't have their best players, as many of them were out with injury. The guys that were in there, they fought, they scored a lot and [00:03:00] especially in the fourth quarter, but it wasn't enough to surpass the hawks. The Celtics game was just the Celtics picked up Nicola Vukovich at the trade deadline. He is to me. Chris Taps Pingus 2.0. He just makes the entire Celtics team equal. You got Tatum, you got Brown, you got Derek White, but they always need that big in the middle. That can space things out. He can shoot, he can rebound. Vukovich is that guy. He killed the. Especially in a key sequence. In the third quarter, the Celtics they outplayed the heat. 36 to 15 Vukovi. He was able to get a rebound. He went, they went to the other end of the floor. He had Drew Smith guarding him. He misses a layup, he gets the offensive rebound. He puts it back in that stretch between him and Derrick White. They scored like [00:04:00] 15 points between and Derrick White. As the old phrase goes, you lose the battle, but you win the war. Derrick Wright has won all the battle. For the Celtics, you would've thought he would've won the war in game six when he had that amazing putback in the Eastern Conference finals. But then the heat won the war and the advanced in game seven. But ever since then, white has just killed the heat. I think he's averaging more than 20 points per game against Miami. He knocks down key shots. He gets timely free throws and he did the same thing and the heat ended up after playing very well for the first half. They ended up dropping it in the third quarter. They fought back. They made it competitive in the fourth, but they lost the game. And it's what Coach Bolster keeps talking about, his tough love approach. But we'll get to that very shortly in the standout segment. Bam. At abi on a weekly [00:05:00] basis he headlines the glass categories. He dominates every averages in total rebounds, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds. But this week, Kal Weer has unseated him and led in offensive rebounds. Averaging two per game in the games that he played. Norman Powell and Andrew Wiggins, they had a tremendous two-way effort this week leading the team. But Powell led the team averaging in steels and field goals made, and Andrew Wiggins he led the team averaging three, three point shots made and in blocked per game. He announced, Eric agreed that we're playing today against Washington. He calls him the quiet storm. I love Andrew. He's great. So that was our standout segment. And another standout segment, and it goes with what Coach Oltra is saying. He said it in the post-game in the Boston series. He's we have a high seal. These guys can compete. [00:06:00] And a stat that was given to me by the experts in the Peach Basket stat office they, he'd have three quality wins against championship level teams. And no bad losses. That means the heater on an upswing. Okay? So pretty soon they're gonna go from middling to competing for the top three seeds in the east. That's a very important stat, very key stat. So you see that even though a lot of fans are grumbling and they're like, oh my God, pat Riley didn't do anything, that he aren't gonna do anything ever, they were always gonna be mid. The youth movement, they're starting to learn under spo they're starting to buy in and pretty soon I think in the off season of 2026, something's gonna happen and this team's gonna be better for it, and they're gonna be putting multiple winning seasons together. So it leads us to our marquee matchup. And the key for this upcoming week is to win [00:07:00] every game. The heat have three winnable games. They play, they're playing right now at Washington and they're leading, they play at New Orleans and they're home to the Utah Jazz now. Jaron Jackson Jr. And all the trade pieces, they went to the jazz, they lost to the magic the other night, one 20 to one 17. So the jazz game is gonna be tough, but they get the jazz at home, all the variables are there that the heat can put together a good game and get a win. The heat should win every game this week. It's a goal. It's not gonna be something that they're gonna do definitely. But they have three winnable games. They don't have another and checkout an article that I wrote on the site. And the next games in February, they only played three teams with above 500 records, so the heat should win the majority of the games this week in February. So we moved now to the [00:08:00] viral pressure full court segment and was looking, put in Miami Heat for search in Google and got some articles, wanted to talk about. Lecher report claims in an article that Miami was the biggest loser at the trade deadline that remains to be seen. The heat were only $1.9 million below the apre. They have big contracts. So I don't mind, as long as they're competing as a fan, I don't mind that they make good sound financial decisions. Now, the off season is the telltale of 2026, so they're gonna be, have a lot of cap space. Let's see what they do. Another article was Coach Ra doubles down on his tough love approach with the young players. I love this from sp, it sounds like Greg Pop Popovich in a way. He's saying, look, these guys are talented, but they also could be [00:09:00] inconsistent, and that. Generally what, as a fan you want to see from your coach. Taking a hard line with these players, not just giving into them because they're talented. Allah, Lonzo Ball, even though Charlotte's on a nine game winning streak he's, they're buying into it. And you can see from the three quality wins against championship team. Step. Finally Aaron Zaras from the All You Can Heat. Website submits a piece of a list of potential buyout candidates that he should consider. Lonzo Ball, cam Thomas, pat Conden, Chris Boucher and Chris Middleton. Specifically saying, cam Thomas on offense, Lonzo Ball for Defense. And that would probably propel the heat to him. He's positing that it would propel them into the top six, not just the play and turn. I like his thinking on there. I like Boucher as a a [00:10:00] compliment to ba at Abi and, have ware coming off the bench. Cam Thomas, I hear a lot about him. He hasn't really caught on. It would be interesting to see if, he. Catch on with the heat, but we'll see. I'll talk to you again next week. Week 16 is over. And join me again next week for week 17 when we run it back. Have a good night everybody.