Miami Heat: 5 Lessons Learned in the First Week of NBA Season

The 2011-12 NBA season is only a week old, but the Miami Heat haven't lost a game.

The Heatles have remained undefeated in their first give games with solid and opportunistic defense, late game heroics and consistently solid performances by their "big three" and another guy named Norris Cole.

Whether you love the Heat or hate the Heat, and no matter how you feel about LeBron James, there is no debating the fact that reaching 5-0 is an impressive start to the season. 

So what have we learned about the Miami Heat so far in this young 2011-12 season?

Read on to find out. 

5. Heat Can Win Games by Any Means Necessary

The Miami Heat haven't necessarily "wowed" night in and night out in their first week of play.

Sure, they started off the season with a win against the reigning NBA champion Dallas Mavericks and they beat the veteran Boston Celtics with the late game heroics of rookie Norris Cole, but the Heat's five wins have been against teams with a combined record of 5-13.

What's more important than the wins themselves is the way in which the Heat have won, proving that they can win by any means necessary.  

The Heat can win games in blowout fashion, as evidence by a 129-90 blowout at home against the Bobcats. And, the Heat can win with late game heroics and game winners, as evidenced by wins against Boston and their first matchup with Charlotte.

The most important lesson learned from Miami's first five wins however, is the fact that they've been able to close out games down the stretch, which is something that they failed to do all of last season and something that proved to be their major downfall in the 2011 NBA Finals.

4. Norris Cole Is Ready to Solidify Point Guard Position

One of the most surprising storylines of the first week of the NBA season is the emergence of Heat rookie point guard Norris Cole, from Cleveland State.

Aside from the Heat's front office, not many basketball fans predicted the dominant play of Cole, who, albeit extremely early on, appears to be the steal of the 2011 NBA draft.

With only five NBA games under his belt, Cole is averaging 12 points, 3.6 assists and 1.8 steals per game. Those impressive averages are in large part due to Cole's two breakout games, first against the Boston Celtics when he scored 14 of his 20 points in the 4th quarter, and secondly in his most recent game against the Charlotte Bobcats—16 points and 9 assists. 

There is a lot of chatter from Heat fans about the possibility of Cole stealing the starting point guard spot from Mario Chalmers, but it most likely won't happen because of Chalmer's production of 9.4 points, 4.0 assists and 2 steals per game.

One thing is for sure though, if Chalmers falters at all during the 2011-12 NBA season, there is a young and athletic point guard named Norris Cole who is ready and willing to take over.

3. Healthy Udonis Haslem Is Key for Miami's Championship Hopes

Udonis Haslem is the epitome of a cagey veteran.  

He crashes the boards, plays tenacious defense and is absolutely opportunistic on offense, scoring most of his points on put backs and offensive boards—exactly the player the Heat need Haslem to be.

Luckily for both, this year he is healthy enough to perform in that role. 

In the 2010-11 NBA season, Udonis Haslem was sidelined for all but 25 games—13 in the regular season and 12 in the playoffs—with a serious foot injury that kept him fro performing at the level the Heat needed him to.  

In the playoffs last year, Haslem averaged only 24.2 minutes per game, with a measly 4.5 rebounds and 5.3 average. Comparatively this year, with his health at 100 percent, Haslem is averaging 28 minutes with production to the tune of 6.5 points and 10.3 rebounds per game.

In addition to Haslem's offense production, he brings incredible defensive basketball I.Q to the court, which makes the other Heat players on the court better.  

It's impressive to see how much Haslem means to the Miami Heat. And with his health at 100 percent this year, I think the Heat have found what they were missing last year.  

2. Dwyane Wade Is Heat's Mr.Clutch This Year

Last year, with seconds left on the shot clock and the game in question, the Miami Heat never seemed settled on who would get the last shot.  

Sometimes, Wade would get an isolation play called for him, sometimes Chris Bosh would get a jumper off a double screen, and even LeBron James would get a play set up for him.

That inconsistency resulted in the Miami Heat losing close games last year.

But, that won't be happening this year.  

This year, the Heat have shown that their faith is in "Mr. Clutch" himself, Dwyane Wade.

Wade is 2 for 2 when taking game winning shots this season.  Wade hit a five-footer over Bobcat's Gerald Henderson to seal the win for the Heat, and he grabbed an alley-oop with 4.6 seconds left on the clock from LeBron James to sink the Timberwolves.

I know a lot of people think it's too early to believe that Wade will always be the man the Heat give the ball to with the game on the line, but I say "if it aint broke, don't fix it."  Sure there will be times when Wade can't get the ball, because opponents will undoubtedly lock him down.

But until they do, Wade deserves to get the ball because he's earned the nickname of "Mr. Clutch" early on in the 2011-12 NBA season.  

1. Lebron James Is Ready to Win His Third MVP and His First NBA Championship

29.6 points, 7.8 rebounds, 6.6 assists, 2.4 steals, 1.2 blocks

Those averages show that LeBron James is having a stellar start to his 2011-12 campaign. 

Those numbers are amazing, but what is more impressive is that LeBron is currently shooting the ball at over 60%, which currently ranks 6th in the NBA.

For the first time in his nine-year career, LeBron is playing efficiently.

That is in large part do to the fact that he is not trying to do more than he is capable of doing. In his first five games, LeBron has only shot one three pointer, as compared to the 17 three pointers James attempted in his first five games last season.  

LeBron James is taking the game to defenders, using his size, strength and athleticism to exploit their weakness while emphasizing his strengths.

In each of his two previous MVP seasons, LeBron averaged at least 28.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, 7.2 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. That production sure looks familiar to LeBron's production so far this year.

The first week of the Heat's 2011-12 season has proved one thing above all, and that is that LeBron has returned to MVP form.

If he can continue to play at this level throughout the entirety of the season, LeBron and the Heatles will be NBA champions.