Miami Heat: Don't Read Too Much Into Miami's Early Struggles

We have a tendency in American sports culture to over do it when it comes to analyzing, evaluating and scrutinizing rather minor and trivial events, living in the moment without keeping an eye out for the future.

There are some that will look at tonight’s performance from the Miami Heat in their 88-80 loss to the Celtics up in Boston and take the “Doomsday, we vastly overrated this team” stance. But let’s remember - this is just one game.

Who exactly was expecting this group to come out and be a juggernaut, rolling up and down the court like a well oiled machine?

These first ten or so games are going to be a feeling out period for this new super trio of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh, who had all of three minutes to play together before a hamstring injury shut down Wade for the rest of the preseason.

Yes, you would have liked to see a more encouraging showing on this kind of marquee stage, especially after all the hype and endless coverage we had to deal with during the summer. But this is just the beginning. The Heat still have 81 games to show the world they’re worthy of the near deity like status which some have appointed them to.

If there’s one thing we can take away from tonight, it’s that this Miami team still needs parts, most notably a consistent presence down low.

It does seems odd to say that the Heat, a team that roped in the three biggest star free agents of the summer, are in need of something. But it’s true.

If Miami wants to compete with Orlando and Boston in the East, they’re going to need more than a 35-year-old Zydrunas Ilgauskas bumping around in the post.

There are lessons to be learned from tonight’s sloppily executed game. We realize now that this team isn’t going to be the invincible 70 win powerhouse that ESPN tried to sell us. But one cold, out of rhythm night doesn’t mean it’s time to write them off as a contender either.

Those overrated chants we heard from the Boston fans might have been a bit premature.

This Heat team lacked any type of consistent intensity throughout the night yet we saw just how explosive they can be in the latter part of the third quarter when LeBron, who finished with 31 points, “went ballistic” as Charles Barkley said after the game, scoring 14 straight points which cut the Boston to lead to six entering the fourth quarter.

If they can learn how to harness that for a full game, night in and night out, they are going to be very dangerous.

They will get this figured out in time.

Take your finger off the panic button. There’s no need to burn those No. 6 Miami jerseys just yet.